


KX- -/ -X- ' >'V 'V. 

ft -■ y o o' 1 3 ax ; JW* ' A V » fA* " oo' r %v ' j S ■ I 

,0 c- * \i —• c e A *Yj >* '^' jUR/ y ^ 

v cV V *, vf •' • <#• d“ p. * ri ' > 

* X ; x i rt r ' x*^' :. o * «£» ^ ^ N (V °o % 

'•' A-..,V‘ “>°V 

Cj v* ,. V i ~T. 7 s' aV </\ 

\-.> v Xf. 


o r 


»V </> 

a\ V X 

• V ». «»-. * 




V 



\ V ' XT' 


p> 


t» 


°/. y 0 * ,V * <0 

1 ^ rC\ 6 N C 

0° ^ 5 ,-v 

• * • a/ *>w- . ; o o s 

v 0 C 15 lX >: ^ r a ^ 

N \ \>NS \L' Q*> V^>>: /if $ ^ 

o % * o >v & ' i ^ o c_ v 

; » x* S. 0 s ** , °-l * ’ - \* , * p ^ *n>vi s ,, 7 % ^ N 0 ' V ^ .0 ^ 

o s c* v * X ^ v9 X 0 X v. v * ‘ f x 

(A ^ X n v' a /•* r\ <**!? AiiV ,'^Qnt «*»^. 

</» .vV' ' n\\ < //h o 'V .'A Sll'l llfeSv -V\’ ' ?V\\ '•' //}) ° 'S' 


X *V J s S <\ O y 0 fl Jfc f," f ■ A> *, 

V. ■' * a\ „ \ I 8 » X- . 0 » 

^ ^ .# V* _%) °0 

\0 X. 




o5 ^ " 


ff f 



’ t,,> ' V s ' »' *», X P 

, ,v v r X«* ;,*o ^ A' 4 

V y : ■ ,:... •; « ^ - 

% " 




\ y </> 

,\V rO O ' / A 

A oV 

• f 0^ o:;c ^“ 4 / < oN 
.4 © cnx^\i % r v^' ■< M\\;/a ■ , -' <, 


°'J. * 0 N 8 ’ 

^ C- \< a ^ * 0 /■ 

y Xr. ^ X 



\0^. 



^ ^ •; 



y o* ^ ,o xX ^ ^r^sj, .\ 



3 o5 ^ v ' 

<X *■ X^* 7 " y* id) C‘ J> * fl i rp ' L 

"> *C>/° N °° V^ 1 ^ " 8| 



-i oX 

V W ^ / V S 

fO' c >•'•♦/% ** X 

C s ^ ^ ^ ^ 


x> X 
21 ^ ^ 

.* > v X-. » 

'P‘, o 
<p 





: ,>b o N : 




y x 


A' 

^ y 0 

<» 1 c> 


r* A 
iP ^ V 



c^v ' ^ 

\ 

*. 

n 4 . 

> 

o 

* 

r ' -A. 



0 



x/> # 

* ‘ ' 0 f' C* s ? ♦ X’'' * * .V 

(j * r~^\N. y/ "/ 

^ ^ \\ ^ 

; x 



°oo^ 


v ‘ ■ * -'''M/y • x ^ 


; .^ v x 


s> 

C\ f v o > 

o> s^* x * 0 **' 

- ^ «.xO«. X X v 


V V > 





\° °X. 



0 >* c 


(P r ^ v^ k O 

x ‘'" i *,y°\ 

V < A 4 ' *' 

* ., ;; ; M}w ' *y % ”- ■ ■ |.' i x .- j> 'j % 

cP ov ^ xv* "•‘"‘ .x' jx ‘\' 

Ta ^ ° -.;>>*^ > . ^ ^ V 

•A V . -"fc-cC* •■ '«Sh% '- =5*. .A ^ K 



Oo. * 




&4 


,v 


x o' .“ "W 

4 -t. ' 
x H «*i. ■ * 


rp ^ 


9 I 


C\V N s 9 <* / 5 N 0 _ 

. /.'kk'-y v xTX' 1 J 

%$’ »M "X - ^wML X 

<A ir ^ V///^a\\>s >* ^ B - z 

y ftS ^ ,vu. -/ ^^ s s v x 

X* S *• ,. 7 ' : •• _, >* v ’--.'\v\n% ^ a\ ♦ 

* ^ ^ * ‘ " ' ' ■■• -■ ‘ v ' °^ X 3 *■ '.-• ^ ^ ^ 













V 1 ^ 


v * o 




X *9 


v9 o » X 

' W-x 

O y 

v ^ ^ 



5) K- 























N ’w *' v ' -* . 

* 0 o rK s '' J ** 0> V 

v» J. 0 ' ,. <?*. » ,,.„•> ,# „ 

,9* "Cv V V *\ ;" 

<A» <Sr 

# V '\ l 5 ! 



* "V> aV * 

*2 tP ,^v 



«* 

✓ 

o <y 

3 N. 

// o ^ 

s ^ 

^ r ^ A * f 

A ^ 

* -0 oN ( V^Tl's^ v 

*$ «. ^ A* V* 




M AV ^ * WM? - % : « A* <V o WM^ * «5> ^ 

f * ** sr^* A \ %: :><- * ' x ^ * 0 v 5 ^ 

/>:^S V'rr ■ ,v * * ; ;>Vr * ;v o **" /.<^.,v '*~ 

V; W ^ v* x - ,f °^ -W^ ^ 

■'% o 4 y, >• X v - .V * ,0O. 9 |l^ ' i: .v o 4 V, l ^ 

_ ' \vvvo \T ^ <*• r -ryjj?M> 0 *. /■ ^':, -> • S Or v;,//,.^ . 

Ou ^.j v '"- * -a r^ ^ r ’^ V s o r ' v * or ,-> , r^^A' ^ 

o ^ Ov * g . A * \0 O ^ o 5 A' X r >. -y « i> N ^0 

\> ♦ <*•. •'A «V O* ^ s V s * <*«- ■> " ’ ,;f .' 

^A x T%. f 'f> ^ £1 A * -, \^ r x ' 

<\ * # viiM;.%, * <?' A \\> -V 4\ $f;' V' ° 'K. <A * 



c: 





+*- 9 


% 

* 



/ 


■§■■■■■■■; %. r ■ 

\° » ,H tj, - ,5 ^W * J»° ^ 

*tts/ jr >v v s ^ ✓> % , >r > &0 ^ ~ z ^/y jM : r v> ^ 

Cp, /- r ^ -v y V \ <T O A- — ^ p-0 v 

,'V^>c*’-’ v>\-*0, % >, ‘ 1 ' V 

1 : 0k.\ - 

/' % 



> * - A U 

/L r ' ^ VO- ^ 

- a ° ^r- 

/ Jf 2L . 7 

^ o ^xV ^ ^ <T - 

# -t, ^ >r. ^ K ,-' ;i 4''^, Jfc */ * 

S x\ A v 1 ft % * o * x * <■ * J ,, 

X ^S ^ v 8 ft O (VC 00 '? A' « 

H*» x > C> * ^ ^ V^ ** w/r?7?-, * 

o o x ®% : ;^'«, rv , 






✓ 



- v 

*• j > 

° a> ^ -■" v 

A 



%” 4 ' /*-*•, V*'*• •* <,*' s-Vfr^. 

v. ^ jA^r/H." •Af J - e> ^ f\.-—/A V* r ,v 

z < z ~ v 

o A>’ <P- n _ % 

^ o> w +r¥atSNr s . ' > * ^ a> 

■* <G ^ ^/ , * s s A <P^ y o * x * *0 ^ i 

^.‘* si «:% ./ ^*, % $> , < :r * , % , „ „ 

'^O 0 x o ^ K 




r 







V'»IM’ 4° s , * ^/- ^ 3 S 0 0 

A°'r s ^^ C ^ . v / l 

4 r> aV ^ o 




cfv <“ \ 

,:5 >. »■ 9 i v* i 

^ A O' • 

A" ^ 

z ^ ; 

-, .. fi —. ,|; M — I ° v\"' A/> ° 

^ ^ ^ ^ -t- { \ <S* o cc >o ^ v \ 

rjr ■* ^> ^ a.' ^ ty ^ ^ iJl' 

■r '-^.o<c •.««. >r ' ■ * ;v 0 * 1 v° c 


y p f 

A <>• O 



% <\ ^ 

!> b o x f . 

w o s, ^ 

SJO r cU 
V 




0 * X V 

\? a ^ 0 


^ \6 

^ ^ oA]i<k ^ 

>. <V\\\II -S' 





■■<? c' v 

® ^ v ^ 



. V cT> ( //7A^A\\V l 00 y^» 

•, '■' \V ; -^'.“.A ^ % 

k ■/,c ^ .>;:' *'* •>' .v 

o 



i-' 1 -*+ 






















































■ 









* 










BOOK OF 


COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP 


SH52S25K2S2SE5H5ESHSE5E5E5E5EKSE5H5ESHS2SESBS , 2SHS2SHS'25H5a 

Ralston Health 
Club 

S2FaSESBSH5252Sd5B5ES2525H5ESHSE5H5E525ESHS25B5HSa£HSE5E5H5B 


PUBLISHED BY < 

RALSTON COMPANY 

WASHINGTON, D. C, 


1904 





\ 


*P, °(j^ 




LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 29 1904 

Oopyria.ni tntry 

t cf.Zf, < C /0*J 

CLASS /) XXc, No; 





Copyrighted, 1904, by 
RALSTON COMPANY 


All rights reserved 








Introductory I(em&rk:5 

The present work is the only system of its kind in existence. 

The importance of such a work can be understood when it is 
known that physicians who are progressive are everywhere on the 
lookout for ideas that will help them advance their patients toward 
a cure without the use of medicines. The maladies that will not 
yield to the treatments that are founded upon the medical systems 
are on the increase in number, and each year seems to add 
to the already long list. Thirty years ago there was no other 
remedy suggested for the cure of consumption, diabetes, rheu¬ 
matism, gout, uric acid diathesis, and numbers of other diseases 
except drugs and medicines; to-day the doctor who would seek 
to employ drugs or medicines in the treatment of consumption 
or diabetes would be classed as a man guilty of criminal ignorance. 

When rightly understood and applied at proper times the use of 
natural principles and methods in the treatment of sickness is sure 
to effect a permanent cure in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred. 
This fact is slowly but surely coming to be recognized. 

The book now before you contains thousands of facts and sug¬ 
gestions that have been collected through that most exacting of all 
schools, the wide field of experience and actual test. Not one of 
them is an experiment. Nor are these treatments attempts to make 
use of the same methods or principles for all kinds of disease. The 
line of action varies widely and materially as one treatment follows 
another, each having its value in its particular class or use. 

The success of each treatment will depend upon the honesty of 
the patient in following the directions given. 


( 7 ) 




From Hook of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 1 



We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 


This Treatment is private. It is rented to the Inside Member 
to whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The member has no right to loan this mono¬ 
graph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or to come 
into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the same. 
This rule does not forbid the use of the Treatment by the member in 
behalf of any child or aged, person who is actually in the member’s 
household; but all others must become Inside Members of the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help of this Treat¬ 
ment. To become such members will not cost anything, as may be 
seen by consulting the final pages of the book of Inside Member¬ 
ship, if the steps are taken as there directed. 




2 


special treatment number one. 
THE GREAT ANTI-DEATH TREATMENT. 


The word anti means against; and the word death, as here em¬ 
ployed and as explained in the book of Inside Membership, means 
decay of small life in the body. 

What is known as a living organism is composed of a collection of 
small cells, each a living body in itself. Yon began life with only 
one tiny cell as your whole and sole possession; it was so small that 
it would have required a powerful microscope to see it; but it grew, 
and divided its increased bulk up into two cells, and each of these 
did the same; until, after about twenty-one such divisions, there 
were more than a million cells. Each one of these repeated the 
process until the parts of the body were laid out and the whole plan 
of the future human being was plainly set forth. 

Having completed the perfect body, the same cells went on dur¬ 
ing the first twenty years of life, making it grow in size and weight; 
and, after that, there was nothing to do but maintain each day’s 
loss by a new supply. 

When a whole body dies, like that of a man or animal, it begins 
to decay almost as soon as the breath has left it; and nature is so 
much in a hurry that she will sometimes cause such decay while the 
body is still alive, as in gangrene and mortification. But the 
corpse is not allowed to disintegrate in the house or on the open 
ground if there are others who are affected by its putrid presence. 
They bury it in order to remove the danger from their own midst. 

That is death as applied to a large body. 

But that body is composed of tiny cells, each having life-functions 
of its own, and these cells come into life with wonderful celerity 
and die as quickly. Cells contain all the energy which you employ 
every time you think or act. They impart their energy to you by 
giving up their life for yours. That is, it is your life in cell-form 
which becomes your life in actual deeds, by a transfer of the vital im¬ 
pulses contained in the tiny cells to the whole life of your body. 
They break down in the very act of giving you their energy. 

Not only do these little cells go to pieces for the purpose stated, 
but the tissue and structure of the body break down with them. 
The result is that every cell, whether alone, or as a part of some 
tissue, is a corpse in the body, and is chained there by the fact that 
it has no means of its own of getting away. There are no pall¬ 
bearers to carry it out to its grave. 


ANTI-DEATH. 


3 


Each dead cell is a danger to the health. It decays as soon as it 
perishes, and its death is in the body waiting for some agency to 
bring it out. If there were but few of these they might be treated 
as a poison merely, and not great enough to do much harm; but 
there are more millions of them in the body each day than you could 
count in a thousand years if you were to enumerate them at the rate 
of a million a second. They are all dead; most of them are de¬ 
cayed, and, after, they have thus passed into the putrid state, they 
set up gases called toxins. Were it not for the fact that there are 
bacteria that were created for the purpose, these toxins would stop 
the action of your heart and lungs in a very short time. These 
germs, when too abundant, bring some specific form of disease to 
you, depending on the kind of toxins they feed upon. Thus disease 
is an excess of germs; while the germs themselves were trying to do 
your body a service by clearing it of its inner death. 

This fact is very important. 

As long as dead cells accumulate in the body, they will produce 
toxins, and as long as toxins are produced there will be germs of 
disease ready to devour them. If the latter overwhelm you, it is 
because you have allowed too much of this cell-death to pile up in 
your body. 

Disease is like weeds: it is a process of cleaning house by the 
only agency that is then available. If you plant a garden and do 
not cultivate the ground weeds will come, and every weed you 
pull up lets in air and nitrogen to the roots of the plant. Disease 
is weed-pulling; but anti-death measures are like cultivation; the 
weeds never get a chance to make their presence a source of annoy¬ 
ance. The good gardener will keep the soil so clean by cultivation 
that it will never show a weed on its surface; and that is civiliza¬ 
tion. 

The word death is here applied to the dead cells in the human 
body. We used to call them deat, and that is perhaps the better 
word, although it has been coined for the purpose. We will use it 
in this monograph. 

When weeds come into a neglected garden, the owner is compelled 
to pull them up or suffer the loss of his plants. When deat has 
accumulated in the body and toxins invite the germs of disease, the 
owner of that body is compelled to fight the germs out, or else suffer 
the loss of the body. This is the story of sickness, disease and death. 
Every experiment, every known fact in the study of pathogenies, 


4 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE. 

and every law of nature that has a bearing on the subject, all agree 
that this story is a true one, and that it always will be a true one. 

The gardener is given tools and methods with which to keep his 
land under careful culture. The human body is given certain agen¬ 
cies with which to carry off the accumulated deat or dead cells; and 
they are as follows in the order of their importance: 

1. The lungs. 

2. The pores. 

3. The kidneys. 

4. The colon. 

5. The loss of blood. 

6. Starving. 

7. Childbirth. 

The lungs .—This is the first of the great agencies by which deat 
is carried out of the body. Every full breath is loaded with gases, 
liquids and even with solids in microscopical form. The gases are 
largely burned up carbon. That the breath carries liquids may be 
tested by breathing against a pane of cold glass. That it exhales 
solids is proved by collecting its contents and examining them under 
a strong microscope. Few persons exhale enough air. They take 
very limited inhalations and very limited exhalations. The habit 
of breathing out a very long time, relatively speaking, say four or 
five seconds, and taking a quick in-going breath, will soon revolution¬ 
ize the work of the lungs. The result will be that you will throw 
off ten to twenty times as much of the deat and toxins as you are 
now in the habit of doing. All persons, young and old, should be 
taught this as a new habit, and it should be persisted in. 

The pores .—Each pore of the skin is like the end of a great sewer 
leading from a mighty city. The microscope shows not only the ex¬ 
cretions in the form of solids resembling heaps of filth, but there are 
rivers of liquids and gases also that escape. This is mostly true of 
the pores below the lung areas, and extending over the body clear to 
the soles of the feet. If you varnish the body so as to shut up the 
pores and make them air tight, death will result in twenty minutes. 
This shows that they are always active even when they are seem¬ 
ingly closed up with dirt and the dryness of a neglected skin. The 
use of the evening bath just before retiring, by which the skin is 
cleaned from the waist to the feet, and the thorough warming up 
and chafing of the legs and feet, will serve to draw off many times 
more toxins and greater quantities of deat than now occurs. 


anti-death. 


5 


The kidneys .—As the blood passes through the intestines and 
goes towards the kidneys, the latter act by the spongy coverings as 
absorbents of the urine in the body, drawing it off and sending it 
to the bladder. The lack of sufficient drinking water during the 
day weakens the kidneys, and lessens their action. Alcohol should 
be avoided, unless a person is past sixty years of age and cannot 
digest fats of meat. Plenty of cool, soft water should be taken in 
the early morning, as it clears the whole canal and serves to sweeten 
the process of digestion and elimination. Persons who drink but 
little water before breakfast have foul breath, while those who drink 
as much as two glasses at that time have a better breath. This shows 
that urea and deat are being carried off by the natural channels. 
Fruits are valuable in aiding the action of the kidneys. Lemonade 
made without sugar, or lemon juice put in the water of bran, which 
is water clouded with wheat bran, is very helpful. The juice of a 
sweet orange, or of a pear, or sweet apple, or a mildly tart apple, or 
peach, or blackberry will be found valuable in this line. 

The colon .—This part of our subject will be considered a few 
pages later on. 

Loss of blood .—The old theory of bleeding was right in prin¬ 
ciple, but barbarous in its methods. The bleeding draws off good 
and poor blood alike; it rids the system of poisons; but after the 
blood has been taken, a diet of pure blood-producing food should be 
eaten, or the very same poisons will be put back in the system. If 
you have a bottle of water mixed with poisons, you can draw off one 
tenth of the whole, and thus you get rid of that proportion of the 
poisons, provided you do not fill the bottle again with the injurious 
matter. If you put back pure water, you have gained one-tenth.— 
Every woman has an advantage over a man in that she loses a 
small proportion of her blood once a month; hut to gain in health 
thereby she must devote herself to an absolutely pure diet during the 
days she is thus losing. It is an old saying that a woman cleanses 
out her system by this function. The letting of blood to-day is 
almost but not quite obsolete; for there are some who believe in it. 
We do not think it necessary. 

Starving .—One of the strangest things in the life of the body 
'is the disposition of the stomach and tissue to take up and to use 
food that is not ordinarily digestible, provided no other food is 
given it. If you fill the system with deat-producing food, or any 
kind that the stomach does not act upon, or the system assimilate; 


6 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE. 

and, if you go on following one such meal with another and another, 
there will be rebellion very soon. Something will give way. The 
liver will stop, soreness will follow and any of the organs may get 
in such bad shape that heroic treatment must be employed to save 
life. It is what you put in that makes you sick. Yet, on the other 
hand, so adjustible is the human system to exigencies that, if you 
eat what ordinarily cannot be digested, the stomach will take up 
with it rather than to allow starvation to proceed too far. Starving 
in its first stages will turn bad food to good, and the organs of ex¬ 
cretion will act with more energy. The omission of a meal, es¬ 
pecially in the late day, is one of the methods by which deat may 
be removed from the body. To omit a morning meal will tempt 
you to eat a heavy evening meal, and this will send you to bed with 
your system loading up with deat at a time when you are not to be 
active enough to throw it off. All heavy evening meals invite deat 
and toxins. The lighter the meal the better. Most persons eat 
too much at all times. On the other hand it is not best to go to bed 
with the stomach too long empty, and a bit of toast or some clear 
soup and toast will suffice to save the nervousness of trying to fall 
asleep with an empty stomach. This is not a meal however. 
There are many ways of starving; one of the best being to lessen the 
amount taken at each meal, eat only the purest food, and omit the 
evening meal, but taking some toast and soup just before going to 
bed. 

Childbirth .—When a woman gives up part of her body and blood 
to the life that forms within her she loses so much of the good and 
bad of her own flesh; and to take advantage of it she should eat only 
the purest and best food all the while she is pregnant, and for two 
years afterward. The result will be most beneficial. 


Having introduced each of these subjects let us see what ones 
are the most useful. 

The blood stream, consisting of about seven quarts of fluid, cir¬ 
culates through its tubular conduits, the arteries, capillaries and 
veins, at the speed of about seven miles an hour, 168 miles per day. 
The blood is in reality only a solution in water of certain matters 
out of which by a complex system of filters all the other fluids of 
the body are formed. In other words the blood holds in solution, 
all the elements out of which the gastric juice, the saliva, the intes¬ 
tinal fluids, the synovial fluid and a dozen other fluids are produced. 



ANTI-DEATH. 


7 


When it is mentioned that during twenty-four hours these won¬ 
derful little filter cells secrete from the blood about from four to 
eight quarts of gastric juice, about one quart of saliva, about two 
quarts of intestinal and pancreatic juice, as well as smaller quan¬ 
tities of many other fluids—when this is understood some idea may 
be gathered of the immense importance of water, which is, as has 
been said, the real fluid of the body. A great authority on physi¬ 
ology has said: “Water is a very important food element, as all 
physiologic changes take place in a watery solution. Water is the 
medium through which the body is nourished.” 

Water is constantly leaving the body through four avenues, the 
skin, the lungs, the bowels and the kidneys. Of the total amount 
of water leaving the body about 5 per cent, or one-twentieth is ex¬ 
creted through the alimentary tube. One-fifth, or twenty per cent., 
is carried off by the lungs in the form of aqueous vapor. About 
one-third leaves by way of the skin, the fluid known as perspiration, 
while nearly one-half is voided by the kidneys. The water thus 
carried out of the body is heavily laden with various poisonous 
matters, the retention of which would not be merely injurious, but 
fatal. For instance, the perspiration contains about one-half of 
one per cent, of urea, besides other poisons, lactates, sudorates and 
inorganic salts. The urine contains about 2 per cent, of urea, also 
uric acid, creatin, creatinin, exanthin, tyrosin, hyppuric acid, 
leucin, cystin and taurin, besides many other excrementitious 
poisons. 

As one of the greatest pathologists now living said: “ The body 
is a factory of poisons.” And upon the ability to relieve itself of 
these poisons—upon the incessant activity of the organs intrusted 
with such work of elimination depends not only the health, but the 
very life of the individual. There is a story to the effect that some¬ 
where a great pageant was given, a feature of which was a beautiful 
little boy who was to pose as a cherub. Somebody thought it would 
be a good idea to cover the little boy with gold paint. So the skin 
was covered with the paint, and in less than an hour the little boy 
was a real cherub, that is to say, he was dead. The story may or 
may not be true. The point is that it might have been true. For 
to paint the skin and thus obstruct the pores would mean the reten¬ 
tion of a quantity of poison sufficient to cause death. 

Now, from the foregoing we see that all the vital processes take 
place in a watery solution, and that the excretion of the waste poi- 


8 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE. 


sons of the body is accomplished by a process of washing out with 
water through the four avenues of elimination known as skin, 
lungs, bowels and kidneys. 

From what has been said it can readily be understood why it is 
that, although a man can live for from sixty to eighty days without 
food, as has been proved on several occasions, yet if deprived of 
fluids for six or eight days he dies a terrible death. In these cases 
death would result from two causes; first, the retention of poisons 
for the elimination of which water in the forms of sweat, vapor 
from the lungs, urine, etc., was necessary, and, second, from a stop¬ 
page of those vital functions in which water is used. 

The most striking and distinctive peculiarity of water is that it 
is a solvent—a cleanser. The function of water in the body as else¬ 
where is to loosen, dissolve and carry off such matters as can be 
detached from their environment—in other words dirt and impuri¬ 
ties. The water taken into the human system has peculiarly this 
effect: It goes in clean; it comes out dirty. 

In the prevention and treatment of disease this elimination of 
waste is the most important factor. An ounce of elimination is 
worth a ton of medication. And in securing this elimination the 
most important measure is the free drinking of pure water—water 
which shall flush the s} r stem of those poisons the retention of which 
is so deadly. 

Water ought to be taken freely in the morning, on arising, and at 
intervals during the day. Here are two rules: 

1. Fat is made by the union of water with substantial food. It 
is for this reason that milk is fattening. It is nearly all water, but 
yet contains enough substantial food to allow this rule to work. 

2. Persons who do not wish to accumulate fat, should take all 
their fluid on an empty stomach; that is, on arising in the morning, 
and three or four hours after eating, but not within a half-hour of 
eating. 

If the water is not too cold, it cannot do harm, no matter how 
great the quantity. If it is mostly thrown off by perspiration, as 
in the case of althletes, it does more injury than if less water had 
been taken, for it leaves deat in the body with no fluid for its escape 
through the kidneys. Thus too much perspiration leads to a poi¬ 
soning of the kidneys; while, on the other hand, too great a use of 
diuretics floods the kidneys at the expense of the flesh and skin and 
poisons the latter. 


ANTI-D^ATH. 


9 


Some medicines are great diuretics; and they lead to skin dis¬ 
eases. 

Constant perspiration not only leaves deat in the body, but also 
takes valuable plasm out, and weakness follows, as is seen in the 
case of night-sweats, or any other kind. 

Another method of getting rid of the toxins is known as per¬ 
istalsis. This is a wave-motion of the intestines, by which the 
contents are carried along to their end. If this proceeds too rap¬ 
idly, too much food is lost, for the intestines contain food all along 
their length, and the chief nutrition from food is often derived 
from the contents of the bowels. When the bowels are too active, 
the person is weak, just as when the skin is too active. Thus 
“ sweets 99 produce weakness, and “ looseness 99 of the bowels pro¬ 
duces weakness. 

The greatest thing in the health of the body is natural and 
habitual action of the bowels; once a day is best of all. To go 
longer than twenty-four hours is to cause free toxins to pass over 
into the fund of the fixed toxins, and prepare for disease. A move¬ 
ment oftener than once in twenty-four hours may weaken the sys¬ 
tem by taking away food that must he digested in the bowels. 

No greater error can be committed than the taking of pills, or 
purgatives, to hurry on the contents. Even in cases of constipation, 
such drugs only tend toward paralysis and a worse condition of 
constipation afterwards. Certain oils are loosening, and slightly 
more natural. Of course the bowels must be freed, if a cold or 
pneumonia has set in; and they ought to be active in nearly all 
cases. But the taking of drugs, pills, etc., produces a freedom fol¬ 
lowed by a reaction; and the reactions tend toward paralysis. 
Many persons have used pills and drugs until finally the most pow¬ 
erful purgative failed to work, and complete stoppage ensued, end¬ 
ing in death. 

The bowels ought to work like a time-lock; and they will do so 
if taught and trained to it. The way to manage it, is to go to stool 
one hour after breakfast each morning, or at some regular time 
following the first meal of the day, provided it is prior to the middle 
of the forenoon. The system will soon catch the idea of time, and 
it will prove surprising to note the regularity with which the bowels 
will move. 

The result of this “ time-method 99 will be a decided impulse 
given to the peristalsis or wave-motion of the intestines. Constipa- 


10 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE- 

tion is due to toxins between the liver and the kidneys, which poison 
the nerves that control the intestines, leading to stillness or part 
paralysis of the latter; the wave-motion being wholly inactive for a 
while each day. The “ time-method ” gives an impulse to the 
wave-motion; daily movements take away some of the poisons; 
and the w r aves increase constantly until nature will soon demand 
that you go to stool every twenty-four hours, and at a fixed time. 
If you fail to go, and seek to suppress this impulse, grave dangers 
will ensue. 

The natural time for the movement is soon after breakfast. A 
very heavy breakfast is helpful, and there are many reasons why it 
should be the daily habit. In case you have no appetite for the 
morning meal, omit the evening meal; that is, allow nothing to 
enter the stomach after midday, until the next morning; and, if 
this does not bring on an appetite for breakfast, omit all food from 
one morning to the next. 

In order to free the bowels when they are clogged up, or when 
they are constipated, put in practice the foregoing rules; that is, 
omit all food from midday to the next morning; and, if that will 
not work, then omit all food from one morning to the next morning. 
For the breakfast that follows this brief fast, take only plasmic 
food such as is described in the book of the Ralston Health Club; 
and omit all deat-producing food as set forth in that volume. 

There is no case of constipation or clogged bowels that will not 
yield to the foregoing method; and it is the very perfection of 
nature. You may try it among ten, or a hundred, or a thousand, 
or a million of the worst cases, and you will not find a single failure. 

If the appetite for breakfast is strong, let a very full and hearty 
meal be eaten, provided the food contains no deat. You may over¬ 
load the stomach if you will; all the better; for the pressure will 
set in motion the waves of peristalsis, and thus assist nature. 

This method is distinctly an anti-deat treatment. Do not forget 
that it consists of three things: 

1. The omission of all food or all material, except water, from 
entering the stomach between midday and the next morning. 

2. The taking of nothing into the stomach except water, which 
may be had as often as wanted, and pure foods at breakfast and at 
the noon meal. 

3. The effort to aid peristalsis after breakfast, by trying to assist 
nature in the movement. 


anti-death. 


11 


The only variation from the above plan is the omission of all food 
from one breakfast to another, in case the first method does not 
give immediate results. From reports received we find that the 
omission of the evening meal is effective in ninety-nine cases out of 
a hundred. 

In putting this plan into execution it is not necessary to continue 
it for two or more days in succession, but to try it one day in a week, 
if it proves at all inconvenient. We do not mean to advocate the 
omission of any of the regular meals, unless you lack an appetite for 
breakfast. When a person cannot come to the breakfast table with 
a keen and eager desire for food, there is but one explanation, and 
that is the clogging of the system with deat. 

The absence of the morning appetite is a danger signal of the most 
serious kind. It cannot be ignored, for nature will soon exact the 
penalty. A person who does not have an active appetite for break¬ 
fast, and who tries to dodge the issue by indifference, stands in ex¬ 
actly the position as the engineer of a locomotive would do who dis¬ 
regarded the red flag or gave no heed to the red light ahead. 

After a night of rest for the stomach, covering a period of twelve 
or more hours of emptiness, that organ should be hungry for food. 
Its fast of the night should be broken by the heartiest meal of the 
day; hence the morning meal is called break fast. Yet there are 
millions who go to the table and pick over the food in an indifferent 
way, caring nothing for it, and gulping down some hot drink as a 
stimulant in the hope that it will take the place of substantial food. 

Such a person complains of no appetite. Why is there no appe¬ 
tite? Because the whole system is packed full of deat, and the 
chances are that the bowels are inactive. It is for the deat-loaded 
people that some one invented a few years ago the idea of omitting 
the breakfasts; and benefits were derived from it. The benefits came 
from the fact that when the body is full of deat, a fast tends to 
work off some of the poisonous accumulation, on the same principle 
that bleeding gets rid of poisons. But the steady omission of the 
most necessary meal of the day is sure to bring disaster, and such 
has been the fate of those who have indulged in that plan. 

A fast may consist of the omission of one meal, or two, or three, 
or more. A fast, to be effective, must be an exception to an estab¬ 
lished custom; therefore it cannot be a regular daily habit. 

We have had the no-breakfast method tested in all ways, by all 
classes of people, and in all its bearings. It becomes a danger in 


i2 SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER ONE. 

time. It has been modified to include three meals a day, with the 
breakfast quite late in the morning. Even then it is a failure. 

If there is any fact more clearly proved than another in the whole 
realm of natural processes, it is that the morning meal ought to be 
heaviest and most nutritious of all the meals of the day; and, in 
order to make the appetite keen in the morning, the evening meal 
should be omitted occasionally until an appetite has been aroused 
for the breakfast. We have had this done in many thousands of 
cases, and always with remarkable success. 

Then, when an appetite has been established for breakfast, the 
evening meal should be made as light as possible, while the break¬ 
fast should be made as heavy as possible. There is a natural rea¬ 
son for this rule, and it is this: The food that enters the body, no 
matter how wholesome it may be, is turned to deat by a sluggish 
action of the system after it has been digested. A supper may be 
completed at seven o’clock, and the food may all be digested by ten 
o’clock, but, after digestion, the circulation of the blood must take 
it into all the avenues of the body for the next ten hours; and this 
process is going on all night long while sleep is in control. 

The result is that the muscles are twitching with an excess of 
muscle-making food taken at a heavy evening meal, the nerves are 
racked even during sleep, and the brain is tormented by new food 
that seeks assimilation and finds it not. So the person sleeps all 
through the night in many cases, yet awakes in the, morning with a 
headache and a stomach that has no craving for food, but the blood 
has not distributed what it took up from the excessively heavy meal 
of the evening before. Daytime, daylight, fresh air, and the thou¬ 
sand activities of mind and body are best adapted to the distribution 
of the food of a heavy meal, for which reason the breakfast should be 
the big meal, and the supper should be the light meal. 

We have had countless thousands of cases where constant head¬ 
aches would not yield to medicine or any kind of treatment; yet dis¬ 
appeared entirely when the suppers were made very plain and light, 
and the breakfasts heavy and elaborate. In one case a woman could 
not find permanent relief until she had taken but one meal a day, 
and that a big breakfast, every other day in the month. It was 
this semi-fasting that drove the deat from her body and gave her 
freedom from the toxins that attend deat. 

The eating of a full meal at supper time so clogs the system that 
there is no appetite for breakfast. It is a very easy matter to prove 


ANTI-DEATH. 


13 


that heavy meals at evening, or after the middle of the afternoon, 
lead to disease. They cannot possibly be digested in the intestinal 
tract where the main work of digestion takes place. The time of 
leaving the stomach is of little consequence compared with the after 
processes. No person should retire for ten hours after eating a 
heavy meal. 

Yet the majority of the people eat a heavy meat at the close of 
the afternoon; and, without a single exception, they sooner or later 
pay the penalty. 

Fasting becomes a necessity when the blood is loaded with deat 
and the flesh with toxins. Bleeding takes its place. Childbirth 
is equivalent to bleeding, but its cleansing offices are performed 
rarely, and even then are not valuable if wholesome food is not 
taken. Menstruation, unless attended by free flowing, is too limited 
to do much good; yet a woman who aids this freeness by activity in 
the early hours, and rests when too free, will throw off much deat; 
and she can secure advantage by eating wholesome food during the 
period and for a few days afterward. 

That menstruation is serviceable in removing deat, is made cer¬ 
tain by a series of experiments which have been made under our 
supervsion; and so decided are they in their results that we propose 
to ask one hundred thousand women to aid us in carrying them on¬ 
ward into broader fields of investigation. An immense amount of 
good may be accomplished in this way. 

As far as we have now gone, we find that, under certain con¬ 
ditions, the menstrual flow increases in quantity and becomes more 
poisonous in quality in proportion as deat-producing food is eaten; 
and that, when all deat-producing food is omitted, the flow almost 
ceases, and yet the function is perfectly carried on. By this is meant 
that the ovum descends, the uterine membrane sloughs off, and the 
disintegrated material passes out in a natural and cleanly process. 

This seems to indicate that the menstrual flow is intended to 
carry away deat. The same thing is also indicated by exercise and 
physical activity that remove the toxins by the usual channels and 
excretions; the more they are adopted as fixed habits, the less is the 
monthly discharge. Women who are quite active through years 
of habit, and who get plenty of outdoor light, life and fresh air, have 
almost no discharge at all; they never put on napkins. These facts 
are well established in physiology. Thus the kind of habits that 
will reduce the toxins, will also reduce the menstrual discharge, 
When the toxins are reduced* deat cannot accumulate, 


14 


SiPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE. 


Many very interesting and serviceable experiments can be made. 
In one line we find that the time of meals, the nature of the food, 
the quantity eaten at supper, or at breakfast, etc., may control the 
menstrual periods and the quantity and qualtity of the discharge. 
As one class of examples, let any fifty women who are irregular and 
who suffer much, if they are eaters of heavy suppers, change the 
latter habit to heavy breakfasts and either fast after the midday 
meal, or else eat light, plain suppers, and the whole character of 
their catamenia will be so changed that they will think some miracle 
has been at work in them. Yet these same women might use drugs 
forever and not get a bit of relief. That these things are facts 
may be easily proved. They are not theories. They may be tested 
at once by millions of women. It costs nothing to test them. Like 
all the blessings of Ralstonism, they stand knocking at your door. 

What is true in principle of the health of woman is, equally true 
in the masculine gender, although the latter does not employ similar 
functions. The same good habits will enable him to throw off the 
deat and toxins. Woman, by the best habits, causes her menstrua¬ 
tion to practically cease, as is the case with those who are out of 
doors much and keep physically active. They become masculine to 
that extent, and it is true that, when both sexes adopt the best foods 
and the most natural habits, they approach each other. Woman’s 
body then takes on the size, qualities and powers of endurance com¬ 
mon to man; and she ceases to be annoyed by what she calls the 
affliction of her sex. 

Flushing is one of the methods whereby the toxins are thrown off. 
Much has been said in its favor, and practically nothing against 
it. But there are two sides to the question. Certain physical 
laws come into the presentation of the subject, and they are these: 

1. Flushing, if properly done, removes deat, toxins and other 

material. , 

2. It is cleansing. 

3. By the removal of the contents stated, the way is cleared for 
an advance of other contents from other parts of the intestines. 

4. The advance of other contents causes the general blood and 
flesh to give up some of their deat and toxins. This has relieved 
many a headache and been useful in heading off many a cold. 

But there are objections to flushing, and they may be stated 
under a continuance of the same laws, as follows: 

5. Flushing, if done improperly or to excess, weakens the walls 
of the passages, a^d drives out the needed mucus. 


ANTI-DEATH 


15 


6. It weakens the outlet, and gives slight encouragement to the 
habit of piles. 

7. It carries off much undigested food. This is the most serious 
of all the objections. 

Not only is there undigested and needed food in the colon, but 
the emptying of the latter causes the contents above to come into 
the colon before their food has been digested, and brings on the 
weakness that attends diarrhoea. This malady is the rushing of 
food through the intestines faster than it can be digested; hence it 
means the loss of nutrition to the system and consequent weakness. 

All persons who seek health must understand that the food 
should be allowed to pass slowly from the stomach to its outward 
exit, one movement a day being the best and most natural. This 
movement should be free but not loose. Yet, as between looseness 
and constipation, the latter is by far the more dangerous, for it 
leaves toxins in the body and they can stir up incalculable mischief 
in a very short time. 

Flushing does not cause piles. It may help a little to make them 
worse or more constant; but the real cause is way back in the liver. 
Constipation has a similar cause, and the two maladies often attend 
each other. Both are bad, very bad, and should not be allowed to 
exist a moment. Nor should flushing be employed as the chief 
cure of constipation. 

Persons who are afflicted with piles are all deat-eaters. There 
are no exceptions. It is useless to doctor and purge for the cure of 
either of these common and prevailing maladies, as long as you 
take the kind of food that causes them. Cures are never sensibly 
sought or administered when the things that lead to the disease are 
still persisted in. Persons who make this blunder have no right 
to say that they receive no help. 

Flushing, therefore, must not be made responsible for the piles, 
if the latter appear after this method of removing deat has been 
employed for a while. 

For the ordinary purposes of flushing, a gravity syringe is the 
best. This consists of any vessel or water-tight bag that may be 
hung up at a height of three to five feet above the middle of the 
body when the latter is ready for the injection. A fall of three 
feet is generally sufficient, but sometimes it is not. An ordinary 
stiff syringe, with piston, may be used; or a flexible bulb and tube. 

We have had thousands of inquiries as to where these syringes: 


16 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE. 

may be bought. You must consult your druggist. We cannot 
reply to the many letters we receive. It is not policy for us to 
recommend any particular make or kind, for the manufacturers 
often get hold of our replies and print them for public advertise¬ 
ments and thus claim that we have endorsed them. Letters are 
written to us for the purpose of having favorable replies sent; but 
we do not answer them. 

The condition of the rectum should be first ascertained. Per¬ 
sons who have been constipated are likely to have hemorrhoids, and 
these are too often irritated by haste and carelessness. The nozzle 
of the syringe should never be allowed to strike them. A soft 
catheter, very flexible, should be employed. But, before injecting 
it, the surface should be smeared with sweet oil, or, instead, with 
melted butter or vaseline. Do not use glycerine, as that excites 
the action of the bowels, and flushing must not be followed imme¬ 
diately by such action. 

The hemorrhoids may be reduced by a two per cent, solution of 
cocaine, just before the nozzle of the syringe is injected. 

No matter what kind of a syringe is used, the hard nozzle should 
never be employed. In fact, such a nozzle should never enter the 
rectum of any person, young or old. The common kinds are made 
of hard rubber, steel, celluloid, ivory, etc., and should be avoided. 
The right kind may be had in any large or first-class drug stores; 
although many druggists do not keep them. They are known as 
catheters, and may be attached to any syringe. 

A catheter for the rectum should be flexible enough to resist a 
direct thrust against the internal passage, and yet not so flexible as 
to double on itself. For children it is best to use a No. 12 or 
No. 14 ordinary “velvet-eyed” catheter. For adults the tube 
should be about the thickness of a round lead pencil. The stiff 
rubber and other kinds of nozzles, now in common use on syringes, 
have led to irritation and hemorrhages in the hands of impatient 
and unskillful nurses and attendants. Sometimes they are thrust 
in with such haste as to cause pain and after-injury. 

Although the catheter was originally employed for emptying the 
bladder, the name is now applied to other kinds of instruments for 
other passages. 

Flushing is employed to wash out the large intestine, as well as 
to empty it of its contents, and to restore as much food value as 

my tow \>m. rmuoyed, The?e three purposes constitute the 


ANTI-DEATH. 


17 


FULL SCOPE OF FLUSHING. 

1. To cleanse the large intestine. 

2. To remove its contents, and thus set free the deat there and 
in the other parts of the system. 

3. To restore the lost nutrition. 

There is but one proper time for its use, and that is just before 
retiring at night. By the use of the bulb-syringe, or the gravity 
method (a raised bag with long tube extending to the middle of 
the body) any adult can take the treatment unaided. 

While it may be performed at any time when the system feels 
clogged, and especially when there is a severe headache, the night 
time is preferable, for the body then may rest in bed. The water 
ought to be retained for six to ten hours, or until it is necessary to 
urinate, as much of it will pass on to the bladder by the action of 
the kidneys, and thus cleanse the latter. 

As soon as the full quantity of fluid has been injected, a dry 
towel should be placed at the rectum and held there so as to prevent 
the escape of any of the liquid. In case the injection causes a 
movement of the bowels, this should be encouraged and made as 
complete as possible, and then the quantity of fluid should be re¬ 
peated for the purpose of retention. While in bed, it is better to 
lie on the left side as long as possible, and go to sleep in that 
position. 

If an attendant is assisting, it is better to lie on the left side for 
about half the quantity of the injection; then on the back for a 
fourth of it; then on the right side for more; and finally on the left 
side for repose. Much more can be put in by this method. 

The following fluids may be injected for cleansing purposes: 

1. Warm water, to which a teaspoonful of salt per quart of water 
has been added. 

2. Warm water containing a teaspoonful of powdered borax for 
each quart of water. 

3. Warm water containing a teaspoonful of salt, also a teaspoon¬ 
ful of powdered borax for each quart of water. 

4. Warm water containing soapsuds made from pure castile soap. 
The greater the quantity of soapsuds the better. 

5. Warm water containing soapsuds made from pure castile soap, 
to which a teaspoonful of sweet oil or castor oil has been added for 
each quart of water, 

2 



18 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE. 

6. Warm water containing soapsuds mads from carbolic soap, to 
which a teaspoonful of sweet oil or caster oil has been added for 
each quart of water. 

The last one, No. 6, is used only in case of severe constipation, 
lasting several days, or when a special antiseptic cleansing is de¬ 
sired. 

No. 5 is used for mild cases of constipation and cleansing pur¬ 
poses. 

No. 4 is used for cleansing purposes, when there is no constipa¬ 
tion. It precedes the food-injection. 

No. 3 is used when there is irritation at the rectum, and flushing 
is desired. This means that a sensitive condition of the rectum is 
allayed by this combination, which serves also for the purpose of 
being retained during the night. 

No. 2 is used for cleansing the rectum, and not for retention. 

No. 1 is the simplest form of flushing. 

When the purpose is merely to cleanse, the quantity may vary 
from a pint to three or four quarts. When retention is desired, 
the large intestine should be filled full, and none of it allowed to 
escape until morning, unless the kidneys act sooner. 

During a period of headaches and colds, as well as when the sys¬ 
tem is clogged, the flushing may be taken every other night; but, 
when it causes irritation or weakness, it should be omitted. Once 
a week is sufficient for the purpose of removing deat accumulations. 
The more frequent use of it is for immediate relief from headaches, 
colds, or maladies that require a speedy and thorough cleansing 
of the system. 

RESTORING LOST NUTRITION. 

All processes of emptying the intestines, except by peristalsis, are 
unnatural. This fact must not be forgotten. But methods that 
are unnatural must at times be resorted to, although they are never 
to be used when conditions are normal, and the health is all that 
can be desired. 

The least harmful process of emptying the intestines is the use 
of flushing; assuming, of course, that you do not care to take the 
trouble to avoid deat-producing food. Flushing has been in use for 
hundreds of years, but not scientifically. Even in late years, when 
it has been so ably defended by certain physicians, its full scientific 


ANTI-DEATH. 


19 


use has not been attained. We have recommended it, in other 
forms and under other names, for over twenty years; and the pres¬ 
ent method is now known to us to be the best. The too frequent 
use of it has negatived all the good of which it was capable. 

If you are not troubled with catharrhal conditions, or colds, head¬ 
aches or influenza; or if your system is not clogged and the liver is 
not torpid, then do not use this or any flushing method. Depend 
on peristalsis, for that is one of nature’s greatest blessings; other¬ 
wise try the flushing treatment once a night until partial relief 
comes, then once a week until peristalsis is fully established. Do 
not use it at all if you continue to take deat-food, for there is no 
cure at hand. 

When any artificial means is adopted for removing deat, there is 
always a loss of nutrition that the body needs, and this loss must 
be made good as soon as possible. A person is generally weak, 
for the contents of the intestines are tied up and the action of the 
mucous membranes is reduced to almost nothing. The mucous 
itself is generally dried up, and there is a state of semi-paralysis. 
In cases of this kind the nutrition is not attainable and the flushing 
of the intestine does not add to the weakness. 

On the other hand, the hurrying through the body of a mass of 
material that should have remained long enough to have yielded 
nutrition, produces loss of vitality. 

While the flushing of the colon does not add to the weakness, the 
latter is present, and good value in the shape of nutrition should be 
restored. This is called nutrient injections. If no purging is 
necessary, then the first thing to do is to cleanse the colon, or big 
intestine, by injecting a quantity of water, with the additions al¬ 
ready stated. The next thing to do is to inject food into the intes¬ 
tine. 

This must be done with the utmost care. In view of the fact 
that many valuable lives have been saved by nutrient injections, the 
right way of giving them ought to be learned. The idea that they 
are objectionable, or inconvenient, ought not for a moment to be 
entertained. It is absolutely true that it is not a bit more trouble¬ 
some to take a nutrient injection than it is to give the teeth a proper 
brushing. 

The water for all purposes must be between 90 and 95 degrees; 
a little under lukewarm. If too warm or too cool it causes peri¬ 
stalsis, and thus will destroy all the good of a nutrient injection, 


20 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE. 

The catheter must be inserted a distance of ten to twelve inches 
when the nutrient injection is made. There are two important 
reasons for this. The first is that the contents will be more likely 
to be retained if they are placed far within. The second refers to 
the circulatory action of the blood which comes against the mem¬ 
brane of the large intestine. While the latter absorbs food by the 
porous action of its surface, the value of the food so taken is never 
fully secured until it has been acted upon by the liver. 

All food must be acted upon by the liver before it will turn to 
protoplasm. This is an important fact, and should be well borne 
in mind. The large intestine communicates with two departments 
of the circulation. What is called the higher rectum, sends the 
food through its walls directly into the branches of the vena porta, 
which lead to the liver; while the lower rectum sends its food into 
the inferior vena cava, without going to the liver. 

So important is this distinction that life and death often hang 
upon it. In a series of cases it was found that the patients were 
slowly dying of starvation. It was impossible to feed them through 
the mouth owing to diseases of that part or of the stomach. Proper 
nutrient supplies were injected into the rectum, but no good was 
derived from them. When eminent specialists were called in, the 
catheters were found to be too short. They were then inserted to 
a length of about a foot, and immediately the patients began to 
gain, and all recovered. 

It is surprising how quickly the food that is inserted properly 
into the rectum will find its way into the general circulation, if it 
is made to reach the liver. The activity of the blood is wonderful. 
Experiments show that certain odors and tastes come quickly to 
the mouth. This is due to the fact that the food passes through 
the walls of the rectum, then into the vena porta, and by that 
system into the liver, where it is digested and sent into circulation. 

The blood, when it is short of water, creates the sensation known 
as thirst. When there is plenty of water in the general circulation, 
the blood will not take it from the intestines; but, just as soon as 
the supply is short, the blood draws at once from the intestines. 
Some remarkable facts are known in this connection. A woman, 
whose stomach was bleeding, was unable to take water, as its use 
would have been at once fatal. Her sufferings from thirst were 
horrible, as this sensation is far more unendurable than starvation. 
Plenty of pure drinking water wak put into the rectum, and in- 


ANTI-DEATH. 


2i 

stantly the blood took it up. Again more water was injected, until 
thirst was relieved, and not a trace of it remained in the intestine. 
From the very beginning of the injections the horror of the thirst 
began to subside, and the tongue became moist, which is of itself 
the most certain evidence of the entrance of water into the circula¬ 
tion. She had been losing weight from loss of water and food; but 
as soon as nutrient injections were added to those of water, she 
ceased to lose weight. 

In quite a number of cases where patients could not take water, 
they have had their thirst relieved by rectum injections. Any per¬ 
son who has suffered from genuine thirst, knows what the agony 
is, and can appreciate the blessings of a science that can give relief 
so speedily. 

The large intestine, or colon, plays an important part in the 
health of the body. When the movements are free and natural, 
they occur once in every twenty-four hours, and should be trained 
to occur very soon after breakfast. Up to the time that breakfast 
is begun, the contents of the intestines will remain out of the rec¬ 
tum, or last section of what is known as the large intestine. When 
a person is costive, or suffering from piles, the rectum is kept full 
of refuse matter, and its poisons are of the vilest kind. 

Above the rectum and beyond it is the large intestine proper, 
known as the colon; and the caecum is the portion of the large 
intestine that connects the latter with the smaller intestines. The 
last named carry on peristalsis, which is a wave-like advance of the 
contents. These enter the caecum a few hours before a movement 
of the bowels ought to take place; and, in persons of perfect health, 
the caecum would be empty all night; for the activities of the morn¬ 
ing ought to bring the material along in about an hour after rising. 
Then, just before breakfast, or during that meal, the contents 
(when a person is in health) ought to be entering the colon. The 
crowding of the stomach with a full meal naturally presses down 
upon the bowels, especially if the lungs are well developed and 
active. This pressure sends the refuse matter to the rectum. 

What digestion remains to be done may be readily accomplished 
in twenty minutes in the upper rectum; and none should be per¬ 
mitted in the lower. 

Here is nature’s plan of health and good condition. Yet no 
attention is paid to it. 

The refuse matter of the bowels contains violent toxins. These 
poisons are taken out when there is a constant and steady move* 


22 


Special Treatment number one. 


ment of the contents onward; and when they do not enter the colon 
before a person rises in the morning, for they stagnate if allowed 
to remain still in the passage. This principle is one of the most 
vital importance, and should be known to every schoolboy and 
schoolgirl. It ought to be regarded as the a, b, c of health: Let 
us examine it for a moment in connection with some well-known 
facts. In the first place, it is established that: 

1. Water introduced into the colon will relieve thirst. A tongue 
that is dry and parched from lack of water, will soon become nor¬ 
mal and moist after such an injection. 

2. Medicines injected into the upper rectum will quickly make 
their tastes manifest in the mouth, and the odors of such medicines 
can be detected in the breath. Thus a patient could readily dis¬ 
tinguish between the taste of iodide of potassium and ergot; another 
detected the taste of claret one day, and whiskey the next; and these 
odors appeared on the breath and were distinguishable to others 
near bj. 

3. Decaying or poisonous matter in the colon is taken up by the 
circulation of the blood, after the nutrient matter that is within 
reach of the walls of the colon has all been absorbed. These walls 
are spongy and are made to attract and draw out the nutrition of 
the contents of the intestines, when that nutrition touches or lies 
close to the walls. In case the nutrient matter is locked up by 
hard packing, it cannot be drawn into the circulation of the blood 
through the walls of the colon. In a natural state, the contents are 
not packed and are not dry, but are soft and moist. They change 
about during peristalsis, and the walls of the intestine act upon 
them all. It takes about twenty minutes for the blood to receive 
the nutrition of such material as may be within the large intestines. 

4. When the good part of the refuse matter has gone into the 
blood, the latter will not take up the poisons until an hour or more 
later on, for good blood has an affinity for good nutrition. After 
a while, however, the blood will begin to reabsorb the deat and tox¬ 
ins of the refuse matter in the cascum, the colon, and the rectum. 
That which is in the rectum is most readily taken up. 

5. If you put any bad-smelling matter into the upper rectum, 
the odor will appear on the breath, and later on it will be noticeable 
at the pores of the skin. If rotten cabbage be injected into the 
colon, and kept there over night, the breath and skin will be very 
offensive the next morning and all next day. If turnips that have 
been boiled and mashed and kept for a day or two are so injected, 


ANTI-DEATH. 


23 


the breath and skin next day will be full of the odor of turnips. So 
with onions. So with any strong smelling matter. 

6. Now everybody knows that the odor of the contents of the 
intestines is very rank, far-reaching and offensive. This odor is 
often peculiar to the individual, and is certainly peculiar to the 
race. The negro is the laziest of all races by natural inclination, 
although there are many men and women of the negro race who are 
neat and tidy. But ordinarily the blacks will not go to stool when 
they ought to. It is common knowledge that they will “ hold off ” 
as long as possible, for they are not disposed to do anything that can 
possibly be delayed an hour or a day. They go to bed at night with 
caecum, colon, and even the rectum packed full of refuse. All stu¬ 
dents of the physical operations of the body know well enough that 
the skin odor, especially at the arm-pits and the thinner surfaces, 
is more pronounced when the large intestine is full of refuse; and 
it is equally well known that all skin odor comes from the bowels, 
and almost entirely from the large intestine. By skin odor we 
mean the peculiar smell that oozes out and collects at the arm- 
pits. It is the same in lesser degree all over the body. We do not 
refer to the odor of perspiration, for that of itself is very faint and 
delicate, as may be noticed when a person has taken a bath, and 
afterwards perspires freely through exercise or heat. There is then 
nothing offensive; and, if the large intestine is empty at the time 
of bathing and is kept empty for hours afterward, there will not be 
the slightest odor at the arm-pits. This fact is so easily verified that 
it ought not to be passed by as a matter of theory. As an illustra¬ 
tion, we had a very urgent request from a prominent lady of wealth 
to assist her in quelling what she described as “ that abominable and 
detestable odor under the arms.” She said that she smelt it all the 
time, and that others detected it, for a very intimate friend had con¬ 
fided as much in her. When asked about her habits of bathing, she 
said that she bathed daily, and that her physician had advised her to 
put a teaspoonful of carbolic acid in the bath-water; but this did 
not draw the smell out or drive it in. 

We then suspected the cause of the trouble. Before making the 
experiment with her, we made twenty preliminary experiments with 
a score of negroes and negresses, all of whom were selected for 
their strong “ African odor.” They were reasonably intelligent 
for their race. We taught them to form habits of eating very 
heavy breakfasts, average dinners, and light suppers; all at our 


24 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE- 

expense and under the supervision of our Regents. We then had 
them go to stool every morning at a fixed hour, but always directly 
after breakfast. This habit soon became very strong with them. 
Under this plan they went to bed at night with the large intestine 
empty; they arose in the morning with it empty; and it began to 
fill just about the time they sat down to breakfast. It therefore 
remained empty nearly all day and all night. There was not time 
enough for the blood to take up the poisons and deat; hence there 
was no chance for getting these rank odors in the blood and to the 
skin. The result was expected, but nevertheless important. These 
twenty blacks bathed twice a week, and not daily; yet their bodies 
were totally free from the negro odor; in fact as sweet as those of 
any human beings; which shows that the offensive smell of the 
negroes is due to the presence of matter in the rectum and colon 
over night, and general^ for days at a time. 

Having fortified ourselves by these experiments, we proceeded to 
make the plan clear to the woman who first called for help, although 
we did not let her know of the preliminary trials. We thought 
that she could be cured of the odor, if the negroes could. To bring 
about conditions of perfect health, we added a list of plasmic foods 
in place of the deat foods she had been eating. This was done be¬ 
cause she suffered from rheumatism and headaches. The cure was 
complete. The sweetening of her body so surprised her that she 
brought the name of the Ralston Health Club into five hundred 
homes. 

To properly handle one such case costs us hundreds of dollars. 
We make no charge of any kind, and do not receive money. All we 
ask is that members benefited shall bring others into the club. We 
are besieged by requests in hundreds, to work out cures in other 
cases, and the question is put to us, why we cannot do as much for 
one person as for another. Our answer is that we take new cases 
only when some natural law is to be worked out that will prove of 
benefit to the world; then we publish the facts, and let our members 
use them. There is no need of our repeating the skin-odor treat¬ 
ment with a million individuals, even if we had a force of assistants 
numerous enough to attend to the correspondence. The facts are all 
printed here; nothing can be added; yet there may be countless num¬ 
bers of persons who will write to us asking all sorts of questions, the 
answers to which are plainly visible in our books, and many will get 
angry because we do not have time to make replies. 


anti-death. 


25 


This explanation is printed here to show our members why we 
sometimes follow out a ease, and generally give no personal atten¬ 
tion to others. To sum up, the plan we adopt is this: 

1. We follow out a case when the conditions are new; and we have 
every helpful test and experiment made in order to learn the cause 
and the best methods of cure. This is not done for the sole purpose 
of helping the patient, but to give new discoveries to the world 
through our members. 

2. When we follow out a personal case, we work through our 
Regents of years of standing in Ralstonism, and they work through 
specially appointed assistants. All this is done quietly. If we 
were to be known when making experiments, it would often he im¬ 
possible to secure the facts. Our own members insist on being un¬ 
known. Suppose, for instance, we were to publish the facts con¬ 
nected with the case of the wealthy lady who suffered mortification 
and shame from the odor under her arm-pits; suppose we had pub¬ 
lished her name and address, and had stated that we had cured her 
of a “ bad smell ” by regulating the action of her bowels, what good 
would it have done Ralstonism ? It would destroy our cause in the 
minds of all decent people, and they are only people whose good 
opinions we seek. We never work openly, nor in our own name, 
when making experiments. 

3. We take no patients, and no individual cases. We have no 

medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. The cost 
of following out an individual case may be hundreds of dollars to us, 
hence we must be the choosers of such cases. A veyy common kind 
of letter we receive is like this: “ Dear Ralston Health Club.— 

There is a person in our town who is afflicted with. 

If you could take the case and effect a cure you would win great 
glory, etc.” We never reply to such letters. Our Ralston books 
may reach all our members, and contain all we know. When any¬ 
thing new is ascertained, we give the facts to Ralstonites who are 
active in the cause. We never charge for newly discovered facts, to 
members who are active, and those who are indifferent to Ral¬ 
stonism would place no value on new knowledge. Hot one “ new 
case ” in ten thousand differs from the general run of maladies 
referred to in our book of the Ralston Health Club. 

These remarks are made in this place because so many persons 
suffer from maladies that may be instantly, or at least gradually, 
relieved by this Treatment. But of what use would special atten¬ 
tion be to them when they go on day after day eating deat-food, and 



26 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE- 

never seek to keep the bowels in clean condition ? When such per¬ 
sons can state honorably that they have not eaten deat-food 
since becoming Ralstonites, and when they can state they go to bed 
every night with clean bodies, and rise to a heavy breakfast every 
morning, followed by a regular action of the bowels, then, and not 
till then, will they be in a position to claim special attention. 

By all this we do not mean that the flushing is to be used all the 
time, or even at all, if you can bring about what is known as 

THE PERFECT HABIT. 

This consists in cleansing the large intestine, and giving it the 
attention referred to in the preceding pages, in case you cannot 
readily establish the movement habit after breakfast. It also con¬ 
sists in eating a large, full morning meal. It also consists in the 
free action of the bowels directly after each breakfast, and never 
again for twenty-four hours; thus making 365 in a year, no more 
and no less. There are many Ralstonites now who have acquired 
this habit, and who are in perfect health because of it. 

It matters not how you bring about the happy result; so that 
this end is attained; the large intestine must be empty all night, 
and the movement must occur after breakfast every morning. 

How much better, how much grander is this plan than that 
now in vogue whereby the large intestine is packed full all night 
long. Most persons realize instinctively the error of going to 
bed with the contents low down. They go to the closet, but all 
the straining in the world will not bring on peristalsis. It is 
the wrong time. Of course, if there are contents in the large 
intestine at night, let them come out if they will; but they should 
not be there then; and, if they do come, the action is not gener¬ 
ally complete, and more contents will move down to take their 
place, thus keeping the poisons there all night long for the blood 
to draw into the circulation. 

And what a taste in the mouth in the morning! Ho wonder 
the teeth are coated and the breath foul! A young husband 
writes: “ My wife is a beautiful girl. She has perfect teeth. 

But every morning her breath is so foul that it fills the room 
and drives me out in despair.” We guessed the cause, and hit it 
right “ the very first time.” The young wife formed the perfect 
habit and her breath was sweet and pure every morning. 


ANTI-DEATH. 


27 


But just think of the rankest poisons of the body resting all 
night in the rectum and sending their deat and toxins into the 
blood. The presence of material in the upper part of the large in¬ 
testine does not do the harm that is done when it packs into the 
lower part, and is not of so much consequence if it enters the caecum. 
But its coming into the colon and filling that and the upper rectum, 
is the worst of all conditions, especially when it is allowed to 
remain during hours of inactivity. 

Then arises the question why the motion of the bowels should 
not be encouraged at night, just before retiring. The answer is 
contained in the following facts: 

1. The contents should remain in the long, narrow intestines 
for about twenty-four hours, in order to permit of perfect digestion. 

2. They need not remain in the colon more than twenty min¬ 
utes to a hundred minutes. 

3. The all night rest prepares them for a speedy morning evac¬ 
uation. 

4. When they start to pass through the colon, they should be 
aided to move quickly. 

5. A heavy meal is necessary to furnish the pressure needed 
to hurry the action through the colon. 

6. A heavy meal at evening is sure to cause an accumulation 
of deat in the body, with consequent toxins and disease; and peo¬ 
ple find it inconvenient to go to stool in the evening; whereas, 
if they wait until they retire, it is hours too late. 

7. A heavy morning meal is natural and helpful; and to go 
to stool right after breakfast is both convenient and hygienic. 

8. The colon is more likely to remain empty from one fore¬ 
noon to the next forenoon than it is after the action of the bowels 
at night; for the latter is not generally full and complete. The 
only time of the day that best suits all people is in the morning 


Two movements a day are not required, nor are they hygienic. 
It is a test of perfect health and perfect condition when a person 
can have one complete movement every twenty-four hours; and 
as soon after breakfast as may be most convenient. The habit 
before breakfast is decidedly wrong, for it cannot be full and 
complete. The pressure is very slight, because there is no new 



28 SPECIAL TREATMEFT NUMBER ONE. 

bulk in the stomach to aid in the downward motion of the con¬ 
tents. 

Regularity of time is one of the most remarkable things in the 
functions of the body. The same kind of activity may be made 
to recur at the precise minute day after day, after a little practice. 
Instead of following the sun, the action may be trained to follow 
the clock; although it is much easier to keep with the sun. If 
you have formed the habit of eating a heavy breakfast at seven 
o’clock every morning, there will be established the desire for a 
heavy meal at that hour. If you have taken only a light meal, the 
desire for a light meal will prevail, and the attempt to eat a heavy 
one will not be well received by the stomach, except in a case of 
special hunger as where the previous evening meal has been 
omitted. 

A seven o’clock breakfast may be followed by an eight o’clock 
evacuation. 

A seven o’clock breakfast may be followed by an evacuation at 
any hour or minute that you prefer, if you will take the trouble 
to establish the habit. Suppose that you are due at your place 
of business at eight o’clock every week-day morning. Rising at 
the last moment is not hygienic. A person who will stay in bed 
in the morning until the duties of the day compel one to get up, 
need not look for health. “ I propose to sleep just as long as I 
can in the morning, for I cannot sleep in the early night,” is the 
cry of abnormal health. Exactly on the same principle, the dis¬ 
ordered stomach cannot eat a hearty breakfast for it ate a big 
supper the evening before. The habits of the morning adjust 
themselves to the habits of the night previous. A heavy supper 
means no appetite for breakfast. A light supper, or none at all, 
means a hearty breakfast. Sleeping late in the morning means 
inability to fall asleep in the early night. 

Think these things over and see if you care to adopt them. 
You may come to the conclusion that you prefer late hours at 
night so as to enjoy a full evening of wakefulness and pleasure; 
and the morning sleep will make up for it. No, it will not. The 
morning sleep sets the night sleep farther along. Eight hours 
of sleep will suffice all healthy people, except in the extremes of 
age. To get up at eight in the morning means to go to bed at 
midnight. To get up at seven means to go to bed at eleven. To 
get up at six means to get to bed at ten. To these add time suffi¬ 
cient for falling asleep and awaking. 


ANTI-DEATH. 


29 


Habit and regularity may be seen in the practice of talking or 
reading oneself to sleep. The more interesting the snbject-matter 
may be, the more difficult it will be to get to sleep. The habit 
of talking with some companion just before retiring for the night, 
or just after getting in bed, will soon become fixed, and sleep will 
be far distant. On the same principle the attempt to engage the 
mind in interesting reading will start its wakefulness at any fixed 
hour, if the attempt is repeated at or about the same time every 
day or night. When once the natural condition of drowsiness 
that comes over the body when sleep is due, is interrupted by 
matters that arouse the mind’s interest, the habit of wakefulness 
will be easily aroused. A person who allows the mind to think 
of important matters after getting into bed, will soon form the 
habit of thinking, and sleep will not come. This practice is so 
much in vogue among business men and worrying women, that 
they will lie awake for hours each night; when nature at her best 
causes the mind to lock up its vaults of memory the instant the 
body falls between the sheets. The remedy for such cases is to 
distract the attention under the plan stated in the Treatment on 
Memory, which enables any person at will to forget or discard 
whatever is not desired in the mind. 

We mention these facts merely as examples of the way in which 
all sorts of habits are quickly formed and adopted in the life of a 
human being. 

The habit of peristalsis can be established in a week and main¬ 
tained during life. The first step to take is to fix a time each 
morning, and make the effort at the precise moment. If it does 
not succeed, repeat the attempt the next morning at the same 
time, and so continue until nature catches the idea. The food 
must be wholesome and the meals must conform to the laws of 
nature. A heavy supper conspires to produce constipation, and 
to tie up the action of the liver and intestines. A heavy break¬ 
fast tends to release the contents and give a normal action to the 
organs involved. 

Fasting is not necessary, although it is an instinctive remedy 
in many cases. When the law that it depends upon is well under¬ 
stood, an occasional fast is very valuable. This law is somewhat 
like that of blood-letting; in the latter case the deat and poisons 
are actually let out in the contents of the blood; while, in fasting, 
they are released, for when the stomach and intestines receive no 
food, everything that is stored up in the system drifts to the 


SO SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE. 

bowels. Fasting, therefore, has the power to draw off much of the 
accumulated deat and poisons. Like blood-letting, it has its pen¬ 
alties, as it reduces the vitality by depriving the body of needed 
nutrition. 

Fasting has come into religious rites or customs because of the 
fact that theology is a science that reflects some of the best prin¬ 
ciples of nature in its codes. Every true religion must necessarily 
do this. Like many other excellent teachings of theology, the 
suggestion of fasting is proffered in a general way. Human sys¬ 
tems are often artificial, and the uses of a natural law are con¬ 
trary to the intended purpose of that law. There is no doubt that 
prolonged fasting has caused many deaths. Very recently we 
met a young woman who was an anaemic from a religious devotion 
to this custom, and she would not give it up, even to save her life. 
Hearing a sermon preached at the funeral of a friend who had 
died from the same cause, and hearing the officiating priest declare 
that her life might have been saved had she listened to the dic¬ 
tates of reason, this young woman gave up her fasting and her 
health was quickly restored. She was then willing to believe that 
nature is the handmaiden of God, and natural laws His mandates. 

Fasting may consist of the omission of one meal, or two, or 
three, or more. An invalid in the first stages of almost any acute 
malady, should fast, and this avoidance of food may continue for 
several days. If food were to be eaten, its presence in the body 
would set up poisons, for it would not be digested. Nothing is 
gained by eating at such a time. Undigested food gives no 
strength; on the other hand it taxes the vitality to some extent, 
increases fever, and adds to the poisons on hand. Parents, 
through ignorance, force their sick children to eat, believing that 
strength is needed to fight down the disease, and millions of the 
young have died because of the blunder. Many persons undertake 
to doctor themselves; when the first stages of some acute illness 
are in progress, they force themselves to eat so as to be able to 
keep up as long as possible, and death is often the penalty. In all 
cases of fever or great physical or nervous depression, the stomach 
must be kept empty, even for days, until nature asserts itself. 

Except in the instances referred to, the body must be regu¬ 
larly fed three times a day or more. The old adage of “ stuff a 
cold and starve a fever 99 is good hygiene in its last provision. As a 
cold is the result of accumulated poisons, a brief fast always helps 
to release some of the deat. The fever must be starved by several 


ANTI-DEATH. 


31 


days of fasting, if it is severe. But the cold needs not only a 
release of the deat, but a supply of plasmic food to take the place 
of the poisons that cause catarrh. 

A cold that is attended by fever must not be fed until the fever 
abates. 

The cases referred to are those wherein the body is already 
attacked. What is more important is a course of living that will 
prevent any attack of illness, whether it be a cold or other malady. 
The removal of deat from the blood and system is sure to keep 
olf every attack; and it has been proved in countless cases that 
even a cold is impossible when there is not an accumulation of 
deat in the body. 

It is in a preventive sense that “ single meal fasting” is use¬ 
ful. The object of the omission of one meal now and then is to 
partly empty the intestines and so call into them some of the 
excess of deat that fills the body. Morning fasting has been tried, 
and was a fad for a while. It did some good, for any omission of 
eating draws out some deat; but it resulted in headaches, neural¬ 
gia, physical depression, constipation and nervousness. We had 
the addresses of many persons who adopted the practice of morn¬ 
ing-fasting, and a large number of them have since died. Two 
characteristic letters from a husband contained the whole story in 
two sentences. The first letter read, “ My wife and I are prac¬ 
ticing morning-fasting, and we feel much better for it.” The 
second letter, written within a month afterwards, said, “ My wife’s 
health at first seemed to improve; but she began to fail rapidly 
and died last week. I find that I cannot keep up the practice of 
morning-fasting, so I have given it up.” This experience is not 
confined to one case, but the tendency to sudden physical depres¬ 
sion is common with those who omit the morning meal. As a 
compromise the devotees of the custom are now taking late break¬ 
fasts. 

All such things are wrong. We never opposed the practice of 
omitting the morning meal until we had given it a thorough test 
in a large number of cases. If it was a good thing Ralstonism 
wanted it. We should have been glad if it had withstood the test; 
and we were sorry when it failed. A large number of its devotees 
were ready to become Ralstonites on condition that we would 
adopt that custom; so the temptation to advocate it was quite 
strong. Since it has run its course and died out, all who used it 


32 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ONE. 


have regretted doing so, except a few who cling to it through 
obstinacy. 

It is wrong because it reverses every condition of good health. 
A lazy person may omit any meal to advantage. An active person 
is in harmony with nature. Life is use. A faculty that has been 
created for use must be used. All natural life is full of activity by 
day and indulges in rest at night. Any other plan is out of har¬ 
mony with nature. The lazy person comes under no law of health. 
Physical and mental activity must be fed, like a locomotive. Car¬ 
bon is the fuel of the engine and of the human body; it supplies 
the energy that produces activity. The structure-building food 
is also required by the body, because it is necessary to renew the 
wear and tear and breakdown by eating nitrogenous food. The 
latter is the only kind of food that repairs the body. Carbons do 
not repair the body. Carbons are required in very much greater 
proportion than the structure-building food. It is an old claim 
that is often repeated in books to-day, that a heavy meal at night 
repairs the loss and breakdown of the day; but as the heavy meal 
is mostly carbon or fuel that supplies activity, it cannot do any 
repairing. 

On the other hand it is a well proved fact that the eating of 
meats and muscle-making foods in general, at the evening meal, 
or supper, keeps the muscles and nerves twitching all night long, 
even when the mind sleeps. Such a night cannot be attended by 
sound slumber. The person may sleep all night, but will not be 
refreshed by it. 

These claims are not theories. Arguments may seem to prove 
an assertion with conclusive power, yet be all overturned by uner¬ 
ring facts. We went to work to get hold of the facts. People who 
ate light breakfasts and heavy suppers were in far less satisfactory 
health than those who ate light suppers and heavy breakfasts. 
These facts could not be ignored; they would not down. Let the 
explanations be what they may, the thing itself is the guide-post 
for humanity. 


From Kook of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904. by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 



*@on,§kipation* 


We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 


This Treatment is private. It is rented to the Inside Member to 
whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The Member has no right to loan this mono¬ 
graph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or to 
come into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the 
same. This rule does not forbid the use of the Treatment by the 
Member in behalf of any child or aged person who is actually in 
the Member’s household; but all others must become Inside Mem¬ 
bers of the Ralston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help 
of this Treatment. To become such Members will not cost any¬ 
thing, as may be seen by consulting the final pages of the book of 
Inside Membership, if the steps are taken as there directed. 

3 33 





34 


SPECIAL TREATMENT number two. 


THE GREAT CONSTIPATION TREATMENT. 

The word constipation is derived from the Latin and means the 
pressing together or packing of the contents of anything; in the 
present use, the intestines or bowels. Inasmuch as the membrane 
which lines the whole alimentary canal is an active agent for digest¬ 
ing food and for passing the nutritive parts into the circulation, 
while refuse is carried on and ejected from the body, this function 
is one of the most important in life. 

Not until every man and woman understands the great necessity 
of free, full and regular action of the bowels at least once in every 
twenty-four hours, will it be possible to teach habits of health. 
You may preach all you will in other directions, you may express 
all the opinions that come to your mind as to the merits or demerits 
of one plan of living over another, but you cannot escape the pun¬ 
ishment which nature inflicts on those who neglect this great 
function. 

If you have a furnace in the house, and allow the ashes to be 
packed under the firebox, you will not be able to run the furnace 
very long. The stomach receives the fuel, and the intestines carry 
along the ashes. The latter should be removed as promptly in the 
one case as in the other. 

But there are many other reasons why it is dangerous to retain 
the dead matter in the body. Nature never stands still where 
there is life. If a body dies, the corpse is soon attacked by mil¬ 
lions of germs that are created for the purpose of changing the 
dead mass into its chemical parts and thus give it back to nature. 
If any part of the living body dies, the same rule holds true. 
Death is never allowed to remain as death; but to transform it 
back to the useful conditions of nature, it must be acted upon by 
germs that devour it. These very germs have life, and they give 
out their own breath and their own excretions; and these are the 
toxins that set up disease if they are allowed to remain in the 
living body. As soon as this new stage of affairs is set up, then 
come the bacteria that feed on the toxins; and this is the last 
stage from first appearance of the deat in the body to its final 
disposition; the body being overwhelmed into its own death if 
there are too many of the bacteria to be fought out by the art of 
modern practice. 


CONSTIPATION. 


35 


Deat is the name given to the dead food that has served the 
body by its presence as nutrition. 

Let us see if you understand the various steps of change by 
which disease is set up. We will number them for reference. 

1. The first cause is the presence of dead food in the body; and 
this is called deat. It comes from delay in disposing of the ashes 
of digestion, or else from eating too much, or from taking food that 
is not nutritious and that cannot be digested; the alimentary canal 
paying no attention to it. 

2. Being in the system, serving no purpose, and threatening the 
life of the body by its accumulating poisons, this deat is a source of 
great danger. Nature knows what the inevitable result must be 
if it is not driven out; but she cannot interfere with the habits of 
the people unless she does so by the graded steps of her own 
methods. She sets up the usual form of decay, and it is not a very 
satisfactory arrangement to have decay going on in the body; but 
she has no other way of meeting the danger. 

3. But decay would mean immediate gangrene or mortifying of 
the body, and this would send the whole human race to their 
graves and wipe out the future history of the world ere it could be 
enacted; so nature seeks to save herself in saving humanity. As 
soon as decay sets in, which is done by germ life of one kind, she 
holds the results of that decay for another series of germs known as 
pathogenic bacteria. When the first series of germs set up the 
process of decay, their excretions and exhalations are found in the 
form of toxins, and these would result in death if there were no 
way of getting rid of them. 

4. The bacteria devour the toxins and take up the whole work 
of fighting the decay. Some of them exhale poisons of their own, 
as is the case in diphtheria, the greatest danger being in the poisons 
that come from the germs, rather than in the germs themselves. 
Whatever the form of disease, it depends on the character of the 
bacteria that are invited in the body, and these depend on the 
variety of toxins they are called upon to devour. But the general 
fact is that the presence of deat leads to the whole trouble. 

5. As soon as the bacteria begin to eat up the toxins, they in¬ 
crease with the growth they must of necessity make in their 
work of eating so much. Then the deat begins to burn up, like so 
much rubbish that has been allowed to accumulate in a house, and 
that will set itself on fire in order to be disposed of. This burning 


36 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 


is fever. Nature employs it in connection with the presence of 
bacteria; and the two are commanded to get rid of the accumulated 
deat, even if it costs a life now and then. In times of plagues, 
cholera, yellow fever, and other epidemics, the work of burning up 
and disposing of the deat is so extensive that it involves a vast 
number of lives; but no person dies who is free from the accu¬ 
mulated deat. 

6. It is the active and natural work of the bacteria that first 
arrests the attenton of people; then the doctor comes in, and he 
has learned that certain medicines will destroy the bacteria, and so 
he checks their work before they have cleansed out the body, and he 
gives us the life of the man, the woman or the child, in a state of 
semi-clean condition, rather than allow the bacteria to do their 
full work and end the careers of so many human beings. It is in 
this way that the medical profession are useful; they are grandly 
striving to do their best for the public; but the public are doing 
nothing for themselves. 

It cannot be claimed that the best time to attack disease is after 
it has gone through all this process and made all this trouble, 
when proper care in advance will prevent it. 

Allowing the intestines to become packed, throws the poisons of 
the deat food back upon the blood, and does an incalculable injury 
to that river of life. To release the blood from such dangers, it is 
important that the contents of the intestines should move onward 
and outward by the regular action of the membrane of wall that 
lines them. 

When these dead contents are held back, and especially when they 
are packed as in constipation, they taint the gastric juices of the 
stomach and check the flow of bile through the channel designed 
for it; they give a sour odor to the skin, which enables any person 
familiar with health principles to detect the presence of constipa¬ 
tion in another; and they prevent the clearness of the complexion 
that must of necessity be the basis of treatment in that direction. 

There can be no pleasure in eating when the contents below the 
stomach are dead and decayed; for the very essential of good diges¬ 
tion is a natural and normal appetite, and this depends on the 
freedom of all the operations of the digestive tract. 

It must not be forgotten that there are in the body a certain 
number of functions which are fixed and necessary. One is the 
exhaling power of the lungs to throw efi a vast amount of deadly 


CONSTIPATION. 


37 


poisons from the circulation; and the carbonic acid gas that is thus 
got out of the system in an hour would, if inhaled all at once, kill 
the strongest man living. 

Then the skin is full of pores that exhale deadly poisons, so 
great in fact that, if the skin were to be made perfectly tight, these 
poisons would, by falling back upon the system, destroy life in 
twenty minutes. 

For largeness of operation and the movement of the greatest 
bulk, the intestines are charged with the most important duty. It 
is when they utterly fail to act that a slow danger ensues. 

The practice of emptying the bowels for immediate relief is not 
the best form of treatment, unless done in a case of immediate de¬ 
mand and then with oil of some kind. All oil has some food value 
despite the fact that it hurries and drives out the contents. The 
use of purgatives, or of any means except oil, is likely to set up a 
dry and semi-paralytic condition of the lining of the intestines, 
making each subsequent dose less effective until nothing will per¬ 
form the act. 

Some persons allow the bowels to become packed before they 
seek to empty them; and then they use powerful purgatives with the 
result that they fail at last to act for them, and the sufferers seek 
the impossible. We have had our attention called to several such 
cases, and death followed in most of them. The bowels failed to 
respond to any drug or purgative, and no injection had the least 
effect. The solid mass was like so much iron; and death came in spite 
of the skill of the best physicians. In each case the patients had 
been in the habit of allowing constipation to go on for days at a 
time, and then taking purgatives prescribed as a cure. No attempt 
was made to get help from nature. 

One such case was referred to us when it was seen that the pa¬ 
tient was not likely to recover; and we suggested the use of hot 
olive oil baths, while the stomach was also fed with nothing but 
olive oil and castor oil, given in strong meat broths. Even then 
it was almost impossible to save the life, and it was the first one 
that had been so saved when so far gone. 

Death from constipation, as a direct result of the packing of the 
bowels, is quite rare; but the condition attends so many other 
maladies that it is always a source of danger and should be care¬ 
fully avoided or overcome at all times. 

The first rule is to take no purgative if it can possibly be avoided. 


38 SPECIAL/ TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 

The second rule is to depend on oil, even caster oil, when any 
specialty is needed. We regard oil as a food. Olive oil is taken 
when the need is not great, or in connection with castor oil; one 
alternating with the other; and the latter not oftener than twice a 
week; while olive oil can be taken three times a day. A diet of olive 
oil with or without meat broth has been known to break up the 
worst case of ordinary constipation; the mixture being all that was 
allowed to enter the stomach for a period of three days, when the 
result was attained. The milder forms of castor oil are not so 
good. When castor oil is to he given to a child, let it be followed 
by some sweet chocolate in the very instant that the oil has passed 
into the mouth, and the taste will be completely hidden. 

But these are remedies and not preventives. The purpose of 
this treatment is to so change the methods of living that there 
will be no need for the oil or for remedial help of any kind. 

We propose to present the facts and the only means of securing 
a permanent cure; the basis of which is an understanding of the 
methods by which the trouble arises and disappears. When the 
food passes from the stomach to the small intestine, it is very thick 
and is called chyme. Here in the small intestine it must by its 
own action excite a rhythmic motion of the canal, intended to invite 
into its bulk three classes of liquid: the pancreatic juices, the bile, 
and the intestinal secretions. The absence of any one of these 
means constipation. If the stomach has been filled with heavy, rich 
concentrated foods, such as come from a big dinner, the bile will not 
flow at all; and so obstinate will the liver become that it will refuse 
to act until the body has been given some muscular tax, as walking, 
laboring or exercising. So here we have a condition where diges¬ 
tion may take place in the stomach and come to a standstill in the 
small intestine. 

It is well understood that the bile is a disinfectant and a slight 
purgative where it flows freely; and in this one matter alone a 
cure for constipation may be found; while, on the other hand, if 
it does not flow at all, the food will ferment, decay, or otherwise 
prove a source of great danger. The rythmical motion is called 
peristalsis; and, although a long word for some, it is easily under¬ 
stood. Constipation is due to lack of peristalsis, which seems 
unable to arouse the liver, and to receive in turn the bile that will 
excite its own action; as these are dependent on each other. In 
rare cases the other juices fail; and in diarrhoea the excess of any 


CONSTIPATION. 


3y 

one fluids or of any irritant leads to too much peristalsis by which 
the contents are emptied violently. In normal health there is an 
even rhythm that prevents either malady. In the small intestine 
the peristalsis is more active than in the large, for it has three 
times as much work to do: it has to carry on the process of diges¬ 
tion which was not completed by the stomach, to do which it must 
invite all the juices to enter its porous walls and to mix with the 
chyme, thus increasing its bulk; it has to stir this around and 
bring every particle of the more fluid chyme in contact with the 
larger surface of the now stretched small intestine, so that the food 
value may be absorbed, pass through and enter the stream of new 
blood; and it has to urge on the refuse mass until it enters the 
large intestine. If any one of these duties is not performed con¬ 
stipation may follow. 

As absorption of food material has been going on along the length 
of the small intestine, and as the fluids given it have been called 
out again, excepting the bile, the chyme at the end of the small 
intestine is again thick, and is of much smaller mass. A little 
valve now opens and closes under the impulse of peristalsis, allowing 
a small part of the chyme to pass through into the larger bowel. 
All along its course to the end the food value is being drawn out 
and passes into the circulation. The knowledge of this kind of 
digestion led to the use of food injections at the rectum when the 
stomach is too weak to retain nourishment. The continual absorp¬ 
tion results in the mass becoming semi-solid; and its odor is due to 
the presence of bile. When the bulk is equal in weight to about 
five ounces on an average, it excites the muscles, of which there are 
many, and they at once arouse a special nerve center in the lumbar 
region of the spinal cord, and the evacuation occurs. In normal 
conditions, if the person has not been overfed or underfed, a daily 
passage should be six inches in length. When incomplete, as in the 
case of one who is in a hurry, part is allowed to remain; and this 
going on day by day causes in time a serious constipation of the 
lower intestine. 

That necessary motion which is known as peristalsis is most 
vigorous in the first six hours of the day, and, as an average-sized 
meal will excite such action all along the line from the stom¬ 
ach to the end, it is most reasonable to encourage it in the first 
part of the day by a good breakfast of beneficial food. We will 
see what that consists of. Before doing so we will say that there are 


40 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 

TEN CAUSES OF CONSTIPATION. 

1. Poverty of food. Those who eat very sparingly at all the 
meals of the day, do not have sufficient vigor of peristalsis to move 
the bowels. 

2. Concentrated food, or any that is too highly nutritive. 

3. Astringents such as tea, brandy or claret, which check the 
flow of juices into the intestine. 

4. Indigestible food, which often ferments and generates gases 
that keep out the juices. 

5. Overeating, which prevents the liver from acting. 

6. Imperfect mastication. This leads to stomach weakness and 
a consequent depression of all the digestive system. 

7. Sedentary habits. 

8. Wrong food selection. 

9. Lack of daily exercise. 

10. Medicines, drugs and stimulants. 

Standing by itself there are no other causes of constipation; 
but it is often an attendant of other maladies, such as anaemia, 
hysteria, liver trouble, dyspepsia, obesity and the overdistention 
of the abdominal wall during pregnancy. 

We have said that the bowel rhythm called peristalsis, which 
alone is necessary to prevent constipation, is naturally more vig¬ 
orous in the first six hours of the morning than at any other time; 
or from about five o’clock to eleven. When an average meal, or 
a meal below the average is taken in the morning, a light lunch 
is taken at noon, and a heavy meal at evening, the natural tendency 
is to crowd the intestine at that time of the day when it will not 
respond, and this at once checks the liver. The physical system 
is awake in the early day and seeks to come into its best action; 
but, in the closing hours of the afternoon or evening, it droops and 
tends to rest. This is universally true of the whole animal king¬ 
dom. Modern civilization feeds itself the heaviest at that time 
of the day while all nature and all life is getting ready for repose. 

The person who would get benefit from this treatment must 
follow all its directions closely and strictly. The fact that it is 
attended by some inconvenience, will not be entertained. We 
know that a cure is certain, if the provisions are adhered to, but 
any deviation from them, however slight, is not to be tolerated. 
Many persons, seeing an improvement, begin to omit small details 


CONSTIPATION. 


41 


and the result is they let larger matters go by and soon a failure 
occurs in the treatment for which they do not blame themselves. 

It requires a moderately heavy meal, not concentrated, to move 
the bowels by a natural action, but it is not true that such a meal 
at evening will do it; nor is it true that too heavy a meal at any 
time will suffice. Physicians have worked out the principle herein 
stated, biit have failed in the following way: By actual observa¬ 
tion in many cases they have come to the conclusion that a mod¬ 
erately heavy meal at evening led to constipation; while the identi¬ 
cal meal in the morning led to natural freedom of the bowels; so 
they declared that one moderately heavy meal each day is not 
sufficient; all three meals must be moderately heavy in order to 
establish uniform peristalsis. Hence arose the error that irregu¬ 
larity was conducive to constipation; a rule that is only true when 
the first meal of the day is light and the last is heavy. Going 
without breakfast leads to the same trouble in its worse form. 
Poor people who go to work half fed and who depend upon get¬ 
ting food in some way during the day, are always seriously con¬ 
stipated; and starving persons have no peristalsis at all. 

Food reaches the small intestines soon after eating; and, in 
most cases, a meal is in bulk there within sixty minutes. With 
nature in the early half of the day awakening by reaction from 
a night of rest, and all the accumulated food of the day before 
seeking exit, it requires nothing but the stimulus of bulk in the 
small intestines to set full peristalsis in motion; which, when begun, 
will soon involve the whole region. A passage may be had by 
pressure of the bulk eaten at breakfast; and, in persons of the most 
regular habits, it occurs soon after that meal is over; while in others 
who are in good health it is delayed an hour or more. When 
coming in the afternoon or evening it is wrong in habit and indi¬ 
cates somethng less than the best of health. 

We have had many facts presented to our attention from physi¬ 
cians who seem to have an earnest desire to follow the laws of na¬ 
ture. One method of curing constipation, as recommended by a 
successful expert, is to omit all food after breakfast and to eat a 
very heavy bulky morning meal. By bulky is meant not concen¬ 
trated food, such as the starches and meat, but the coarser kinds 
which will be mentioned later on in this treatise. 

We took up that method and have had it tried by a number of 
persons who have been troubled with chronic constipation; and the 


42 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 

result has been relief attended by great self-denial and some neu¬ 
ralgia. The long period of omitting eating is more or less distress¬ 
ing. It seems that the heavy bulky food in the morning leads to 
peristalsis in a natural form, which is very desirable ; but it is not 
pleasant to go without the noon and the evening meals as a habit. 
We found that but few days at a time were devoted to the one meal 
plan; that it cured constipation, but did not permanently drive it 
from the system. It came back again, after heavy evening meals, 
and too much indulgence in the things that cause it. The better 
plan is to find some cure that will not require too much self-denial, 
and that will enable the person to live regularly without a recur¬ 
rence of the trouble. 

In a bad case, however, we believe that the eating of a heavy 
bulk breakfast, such as we shall hereafter describe, attended by a 
lighter habit of eating at noon and at night, will effect a permanent 
cure, provided there is reason in. the habits of life. 

As it is true that many little things in combination lead to con¬ 
stipation, so it is likewise true that many little things in combination 
tend towards a cure. One person is immediately relieved by a 
single phase of Eegime, while it has no effect on another. This 
is seen in the old idea of fasting; no good physician to-day will 
depend on the continual use of drugs, but will fall back upon some 
law of nature, and fasting is one of the most effective. It was al¬ 
most a cure-all a few thousands years ago, for it was learned that 
the omission of the third meal each day would help to drive out the 
poisons from the accumulated food in the body; and the reasoning 
was that, if one omission of eating was so valuable, a number of 
omissions would be more effective. But this does not follow. 

Fasting is important when there has been heavy eating, and not 
when the person is a light eater. It is the direct and decided 
change from one kind of condition to another that often proves 
curative. There, when a heavy eater omits all eating for two or 
three days, the system gets a good cleaning out; and we have reliable 
reports from many sources, among them doctors, to the effect that 
a week of absolute denial of all food has not only driven the packed 
contents from the bowels, but has also purified the blood, provided 
the food that was afterward eaten was pure and wholesome, and that 
no hurtful food was taken for two or three weeks. 

During fasting, the bowels act under the law of approaching star¬ 
vation; the juices begin to flow in the search for food, and much 


CONSTIPATION. 


43 


that is otherwise indigestible is "now turned by bacteria into helpful 
food, although the best blood and flesh cannot be the result. 

Such a plan has not been effective when the person has been a 
uniformly light eater, for those who eat sparingly all the time do 
not have sufficient vigor of peristalsis to .move the bowels. Here 
we see a reason why one person cannot derive benefit from a treat¬ 
ment that would help another person. There is always something 
back of each individual case. 

It is a good rule to remember that light eaters should never fast; 
for, to them, a heavy meal would serve the same purpose as fast¬ 
ing. To omit a meal, generally means that the light eater will be 
subject to neuralgia. 

Moderate eaters do not often have constipation, unless they eat 
concentrated food; which consists of too much starch and too much 
meat. Light eaters are usually victims of this malady; and they 
are also out of condition in nearly all other functions of the body. 
Thus a very light eater, if a girl or woman, would not have natural 
menstruation. 

If you are in perfect health in all respects you will find that mod¬ 
erate eating, after the plan of the meals stated in the book of In¬ 
side Membership, will be the best for you, and fasting or otherwise 
changing the ifian of living should not be permitted. 

If you are a light eater, you should take one heavy meal a day, 
and this can be gradually accomplished by adding little by little to 
the morning meal; having the added part as bulky as possible. This 
means that you are not to increase your condition by taking more 
of the concentrated food. The value of the latter is to adjust 
some wrong condition in your system. 

The foregoing remarks show the necessity of not following blindly 
any advice that is based on conditions that suit another case and 
not yours. 

All constipated persons should know what is meant by concen¬ 
trated food, for it has much to do with the cause and the remedy 
of this complaint. This does not mean that no concentrated food 
is to be eaten, for that would cut off a supply of vitality that is 
needed in many cases. In doctoring to get rid of the habit of con¬ 
stipation, there is danger of weakening the heart by too radical 
a change in the diet; yet it is true, and must always be, that diet is 
the chief means of cure, as it is the chief cause of the trouble. 

Therefore, there must not be a total abandonment of concentrated 
food, as it may lead to other complications. 


44 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 


The reason why too much of such food causes the packing of the 
bowels is that it cannot be digested readily, and most of it passes 
on to wait for the process of intestinal digestion; for nature is 
very careful not to hurry out food that has not given up its good to 
the body. She will keep indigestible food for hours and sometimes 
for days in the stomach in the prospect that the gastric juices will 
act upon it; and when they fail the result is fermentation, flatulence 
and distress; then the food goes out by the sickening process of the 
stomach, which gives up its decay either by vomiting or by passing 
it on. 

Another rule comes into play at this stage; the membrane of the 
intestinal canal is porous and admits the various juices into the 
food, and extracts the good from the latter, until the presence of the 
foul condition sets up catarrh which leads soon to the preliminary 
essentials of appendicitis. 

But the rule is that this membrane will not send in its juices if 
there is objectionable matter present; and this may consist of con¬ 
centrated or of injurious food material. Both these classes make 
up the 

THINGS THAT CAUSE CONSTIPATION. 

1. DRINKS, while fluid, may be of such a nature as to prevent 
the inflow of the juices that are necessary to digestion both in the 
stomach and the intestines. Hard water is such a drink. In some 
parts of the country the drinking water is so hard that it will leave 
a limy deposit in kettles and other utensils. Such water is wholly 
unfit for the stomach. If it does not lead to constipation, it is 
pretty sure to set up other conditions that are hurtful, to say 
nothing of the tendency to clog the veins and blood vessels. 

2. TEA is very constipating, and in cases where it has been in¬ 
dulged in, either as a hot drink, or as iced tea, the worst attacks 
of this malady have ensued. In fact there has been more fatal¬ 
ity attending complications arising from constipation that followed 
the use of iced tea, as well as the usual hot beverage, than has oc¬ 
curred without it. It does not appear that every use of tea is 
likely to be charged with this result, but if there is the least ten¬ 
dency to constipation, there should be a total abandonment of tea 
in every form. 

3. COFFEE is less constipating than tea. If it is taken without 
sugar or without milk or cream, it is more wholesome; but it 


CONSTIPATION. 


45 


should not be made strong. It may be used to flavor a cup of hot, 
not boiled milk, or it may be drank as weak coffee. 

4. DEAD COFFEE is that which is either boiled, or re-heated. 
Boiling it kills it. The use of boiling hot water poured over the 
coffee sets free its best and most wholesome contents; but most 
housewives allow it to remain boiling to keep it hot. Then some re¬ 
heat it, which changes it chemically to a poison. Many others make 
the worst mistake of keeping the coffee-pot on the stove all the time, 
adding new coffee as needed, and rarely taking out either the old 
water or the old grounds until space demands a change. Hence they 
drink dead food themselves and give it to others; and catarrhs, 
colds, la grippe, headaches and pain chase each other through those 
families where a miserable ignorance guides the helm of life. The 
money spent for sickness or drugs will more than balance the few 
pennies saved by using dead coffee. 

5. WINE, BEEB and similar astringent drinks, are repelled by 
the liver, the kidneys and the membrane of the intestines; and when 
any one of these agents of digestion and elimination refuse to act 
on a substance, the result is disease sooner or later. The liver 
must be decidedly and aggressively active in order to ensure the 
natural movement of the food. Tea and most wine contains tannin 
which adds another difficulty, for the presence of this chemical will 
lead to the refusal of the bowels to do their work. The red wines 
are worse than the other kinds, but all are injurious if there is the 
least tendency to constipation. Of course, it is true that there are 
millions of men and women who are troubled with this same diffi¬ 
culty who never use alcohol in any form, and this shows that there 
are many kinds of causes of the trouble. No one thing alone may 
lead to it. 

6. Boiled milk is often the cause of constipation. It is used some¬ 
times to check the other condition, or too much looseness of the 
bowels. Still it is possible to train the system to take hot milk 
that has not been boiled, but that has been just brought to the 
boiling point; and at the same time to maintain a freedom in the 
movements of the bowels of the most natural kind. This is our 
test of a perfect condition. 

7. CHOCOLATE and cocoa are to be avoided as long as there 
is a tendency to this trouble. 

8. MEAT of all kinds is constipating in proportion as it is well 
cooked, and also when too much is eaten, whether well done or not. 


46 SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 

It is the meat-fiber that does the harm. The juice of meat may be 
cooked as long as you wish, and it will not affect the system either 
way. Eaw juice of meat is slightly loosening. An entire meat 
diet disturbs the liver and develops latent troubles in the kidneys, 
and has started fatal results that might otherwise have been held in 
check for many years. The quantity of meat that each person 
ought to eat each day depends on the work to be done, but a seden¬ 
tary person ought not to indulge in more than a cubic inch in each 
twenty-four hours, and that ought to be well chewed and the fiber 
not swallowed. Beef is the best, or the fat of ham, taking care 
not to swallow any of the meat-tissue. This means that the habit 
of eating great quantities of meat must cease altogether, and never 
be resumed if there .is to be freedom from constipation. It is not 
an easy thing to give up, especially in America, where fully ten 
times as much meat as is good for the health is eaten daily all 
through the year. To the constipated person we have said over 
and over again, cut down your quantity of meat to one-tenth and 
you will have less trouble. But such person wishes to know if there 
is not some medicine that the doctor can give that will cure the 
trouble and yet permit the meat to be eaten in the proportion of ten 
times as much as is needed. The reply is: When you can find 
some first class grade of gun-powder that will not explode in the 
presence of a burning match, then we can allow the use of meat as 
at present indulged in, and guarantee that there will be no consti¬ 
pation. Even the specialists in appendicitis, a malady that is on 
the very rapid increase, say that it can be traced to too much meat 
and to baking powder cookery. Both these evils are on the in¬ 
crease, and why should appendicitis not also be increasing? 

9. BAKING POWDER is one of the most prevalent of all the 
causes of constipation. The reason for this is the use of alum in it, 
and alum can be found in almost all kinds of baking powder, even 
when the makers take oath that it is free, or when their chemists or 
other chemists whom they hire to analyze their special samples de¬ 
clare that there is no alum in it. Pancake, and other self-rising 
flour, is made quite poisonous from the abundance of alum, which 
can be tasted for hours after eating the cakes, as the alum has an 
astringent action upon the tongue and palate. It is this same 
astringency that stops the natural function of the bowels. We advise 
you to make a list of all the foods that appear on the table in which 
baking powder is used, and you will see why this is an age of consti- 


CONSTIPATION. 


47 


pation, appendicitis and catarrhs. What did you have for break- 
fast this morning? Rolls or biscuits or muffins made from baking 
powder or its equivalent. Flannel cakes, buckwheat cakes, pan¬ 
cakes, waffles or other product of the frying pan, containing baking 
powder or its equivalent. And at the other meals the chances are 
three out of every five that you will have the same powder in other 
products, such as dumplings, cakes, corn bread, crullers, doughnuts, 
short-cake, pie-crust, patties, fritters, various pies made of bread or 
other compounds, and a certain line of puddings. The astringency 
of baking powder in its effect on the stomach and the lining of the 
intestines, is one of the commonest causes of catarrh of those lo¬ 
calities; but it is always a direct cause of constipation; and sys¬ 
tems that are immune from this malady are likely to show other 
forms of disease, when such foods are eaten. 

10. PASTRY in all forms is a cause of constipation. In the 
first place the flour is not cooked that enters into pie-crust and 
other articles that are known as pastry. The flour, if it were raw, 
would be easily digested if thoroughly masticated; but it is co¬ 
agulated starch only, and hence is almost totally indigestible. 
After the flour of any grain has been once subjected to heat suffi¬ 
cient to coagulate it the flour must be cooked for a long time to 
change its nature, as in long cooked bread which becomes closely 
allied to a new compound and is easily digested. Pastry is neither 
raw wheat nor is it a digestible form of cooked grain-flour; it is a 
mass of coagulated starch cells. The crisp condition which attends 
it is likewise injurious. Dinners are now being founded upon 
cake, pastry and fancy dough more and more every year. Patties, 
fritters, pot-pie-dough, package-biscuits, which are little more than 
pastry, and other things, all of which are unfit for food at any 
time, even for a person in robust health, are especially hurt¬ 
ful when one is constipated. 

11. CRISP food of any kind is hurtful and should be avoided in 
this malady. This applies to potatoes, pastry, cake, bread, meat, 
vegetables where attempts are made to excite a false relish by the 
tempting flavor of grease or sweets that are fried or baked hard 
and crispy. Even biscuits and crackers that are otherwise free 
from serious harm, are made injurious by the method of cooking 
that gives them a crisp surface; and such dangerous stuff as Sara¬ 
toga chips have sent more than one million persons into helpless 
gastritis. A crisp surface has a delicious flavor, and fried lard or 


48 


SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 

butter is also a delight to the nose as well as to the palate. So 
are many things that are deadly poisons. As alcohol is a tempter in 
drink, so the smell and taste of crisp food is a tempter in food; and 
of the two the latter has sent more victims to untimely graves, while 
not perhaps having made so many criminals. Of this there is op¬ 
portunity for views on both sides, for a bad case of indigestion makes 
a bad temper, and temper is quick to drive people to hot words, then 
come the blows and the crime is committed. Out of the bad tem¬ 
per that follows indigestion come the ugly dispositions and the 
malice of mankind. It is a well known physiological fact that good 
digestion begets good nature and happy friendships; and digestion 
begins at the stomach and follows through to the end of the alimen¬ 
tary canal. Imagine, if you will, two lovers trying to impress their 
happier dispositions on each other while each is suffering from 
flatulence, gases, eructations, rolling thunders of the bowels and 
other attendant conditions of ingestion; to say nothing of the fetid 
and sour breath that accompanies constipation. 

12. HEW BREAD and newly cooked food of any kind if made 
of the cereals or starches, except rice, are causes of constipation. 
Rice is not hurtful, unless in combinations that tend to produce 
the trouble. Even long-cooked raised bread, made of yeast, which is 
the best of all breads, should not be eaten for twenty-four hours. 
Cake, crackers, rolls, muffins, griddle cakes and all forms of freshly 
cooked or briefly cooked products of cereals, except rice, are to be 
avoided. 

13. SUGAR is a prolific cause of constipation. The quantity 
eaten by some persons is enormous, not merely in candies, but in 
cakes, preserves and other ways. It is better to omit all sugar and 
all candy until your condition is normal. Canned goods, jams, 
fruits put up in syrups, apple sauce, and any article that may con¬ 
tain sugar or that may be sweet, as the sugar fruits, such as 
dates and other kinds, should be avoided, at least until you are in 
good health. Figs are laxative in some cases; in others not; but 
they contain seeds that slightly irritate the lining of the intestines, 
and we doubt the policy of using any irritant, nevertheless, it 
must be admitted that figs have value in the diet for this malady. 
Prunes have a flesh that is laxative, and they are useful also in the 
diet. 

14. Gravies and sauces are not good during the period of this 
cure; if very rich they should be omitted altogether. 


CONSTIPATION. 


49 


15. FERMENT foods, such as sugar and starch, as in cakes, 
sweetened bread, sugar and breakfast foods; or sugar and cream or 
milk, as in ice-cream, and all forms of cream and sugar combi¬ 
nations; butter and sugar; or other mixtures that set up an imme¬ 
diate ferment in the stomach; are all causes of constipation. As we 
have said, no one thing is alone the cause; the malady is due to 
many little things that tend that way. Experiments almost with¬ 
out number have made these facts perfectly clear. 

16. New POTATOES, soggy old potatoes, and heavy soggy rice, 
or heavy bread or other food, are to be avoided. 

17. Dried currants, citron, dates, under-ripe bananas and all 
spices should be avoided. 

Due regard should be had to the principles of cooking and of 
eating, as stated in our book of Inside Membership; but with the 
reservation that, in case of conflict between this treatment and 
that book, the present methods must be pursued. For instance, in 
this treatment we insist upon the free use of tomatoes in a raw 
state, while they are not favored in the work of Inside Member¬ 
ship. After the use of certain foods has served the end sought, 
then the patient must come back to the Regimes of the first book. 

We come now to the classification of foods that are useful in giv¬ 
ing a natural condition to the bowels; and we wish, at all times, 
to omit any rough, violent or over-active line of eating, such as is 
sometimes recommended in order to effect a movement. 

The useful foods are classified according to three qualifications: 

1. LAXATIVES. 

2. BULK. 

3. NUTRITIVE. 

Many of the foods serve two purposes, and these we indicate by 
placing them in the class in which they have the chief character¬ 
istic. 


LAXATIVES. 

1. FIGS are laxative because of the seeds which they contain; 
these irritate the lining of the intestines and create an impulse 
that is often effective. We do not believe in using them to a great 
extent; but in about the proportion mentioned in the REGIME 
which will be given in this treatment. 

2 . PRUNES are laxative. Owing to their bitter nature it is 
necessary to use some sugar in cooking them; but this should be as 

4 


50 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 


little as possible. It is better to omit all or most of the sweetening. 
In connection with the old-fashioned dark molasses, prunes are 
very helpful if eaten in the morning with whole wheat bread. 
They should be soaked all night, then cooked thoroughly, and 
finally sweetened with dark molasses. The combination is not a 
very pleasing one at first, but one soon learns to like it. Children 
have been kept in good condition for years by the use of this fruit 
and the molasses, eaten in connection with old bread. It is also very 
nutritious. 

3. BANANAS are laxative if eaten before breakfast; but care 
should be taken to have them dead ripe with no greenish taste; 
otherwise they may act as a violent and dangerous purgative. The 
way to do is to buy the unripe bananas and allow them to ripen in a 
dark room in pure air, and use them about two days after you 
think they are fully ripe, but before the flesh is beginning to de¬ 
cay. When you are not constipated the better time to eat bananas 
is after a meal. They are nutritious in a high degree, but when 
taken before breakfast they are quite laxative. The only danger 
is in their excessive activity. Do not take chances of being made 
sick by their use. It is better to cut off a clearly good piece about 
an inch long from the banana and try it a half hour before breakfast 
and note the result; then, if it does not work, add to the size the 
next morning. After you have established a free condition, we ad¬ 
vise the use of one banana a day, and generally after supper, be¬ 
cause of its mild value at such a time. 

4. APPLES are both a food and a laxative. They are not one- 
tenth the nutrition that bananas are. Nor are they quite as laxa¬ 
tive. But they have a great value if eaten mellow, and before the 
evening meal by about a half hour, for a mild case, and before 
the breakfast by an hour if for a severe case of constipation. 
Green apples are indigestible and cause something worse than 
constipation; they must be avoided. Nor is it wise to use green 
apples that have been cooked until mellow. We prefer the mellow 
fruit, and the palatable quality. You should not eat an apple 
that makes you wince with its sourness, for it is not useful to you, 
and it must be remembered that every human body is a balance 
between alkaline and acid chemical conditions, to disturb which is 
likely to throw you off your equilibrium. The rule is as to apples: 
Select those that are perfectly mellow by their own process of ripen- 
ing, and eat the kind that most pleasantly agrees with your palate. 


CONSTIPATION. 


51 


This is reasonable and wholesome relish. To suit your relish by 
making a combination of sugar and apple would be pleasing your 
palate by an unwholesome relish and that would not be hygienic or 
sensible. We have stated in our Inside Membership book that it is 
better to have a relish if it is for wholesome food; otherwise not. 
Nature has made more than a hundred different kinds of apples be¬ 
cause she knows there are many different sorts of palates to be 
catered to. BAKED APPLES are excellent. Do not use much 
sugar if any with them, and take cream in abundance. We have 
advised the eating of such apples in all the quantity that is desired, 
and we have been asked if it would be all right to take them also 
for bulk, that is, as many as the appetite would permit, and w^e 
have replied that they may be so eaten as long as constipation is 
obstinate; and, if not green, they will do no harm. Reports have 
come to us from many sources that what has been almost a whole 
diet of baked apples has proved a relief when other laxatives had 
failed. 

5. LEMONS in their juice, and oranges, as well as shattucks, 
and limes, are useful more to cleanse the blood and to give tone to 
the organs, than merely as laxatives; and it may be better to omit 
getting too much acid in the system. The use of lemons, oranges 
and shattucks with apples would be unwise, but they are all right 
with prunes, figs and bananas. The apple has much the same value 
as the lemon, but the latter has no bulk, as it lacks nutritive fiber. 

6. Pears, melons, cantaloupes, watermelons and the all-water 
fruits are useful more to move the kidneys than the intestines; and 
they may be blended into the constipation diet for secondary pur¬ 
poses; always remembering that too much fruit leads to neuralgia. 
It is better to take on any change by gradations rather than by a 
sudden attempt to revolutionize your diet. 

7. Certain small fruits, such as the blackberry eaten raw, the 
strawberry eaten raw, and huckleberries or blueberries eaten with 
cream, are useful as mild laxatives. Gooseberries, raspberries and 
currants are not useful in this case. 

Nearly all the following bulk foods are also more or less laxa¬ 
tive; but we give them under the second list because it is impor¬ 
tant to know what will serve as means of stretching the intestines 
and so excite natural peristalsis. 

Care must be taken to avoid weakening the body by this class of 
foods in excess. 


52 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 


BULK FOODS. 

1. In the line of fruit there is no bulk food as useful as the 
ripe peach. It is not found fresh for many weeks in a year, but 
every enterprising person can find a way to keep it so fo'r nearly 
ten months; and, in its absence, there are others that will take its 
place. Nearly all the laxative foods that have a flesh fiber have also 
bulk. The prune is valuable for this quantity and so are apples. 

2. TOMATOES eaten in great quantity for one meal serve as 
bulk. They contain oxalic acid that may lead to uric acid in case 
you have a tendency to rheumatism, and should be avoided under 
such circumstances. One meal in which tomatoes are eaten heavily, 
may serve to change the condition permanently, or until your abuse 
of the laws of nature shall again make you an invalid. 

3. POTATOES, all the year round, if you can get them so that 
they will cook into a mealy condition, are the best of all bulk foods. 
They cannot be eaten if you have a tendency to diabetes; otherwise 
they are to be the chief food for mere bulk. They are not laxative in 
the true sense, as they do not affect the bowels except as bulk leads 
to a natural condition. A heavy meal of good potatoes, especially 
those that have been baked for a long time, and eaten close to the 
jackets—if you wish them to serve as a laxative, eat the jackets 
and all, but do not do this if you are not suffering from an obstinate 
condition. There is no doubt that the jackets of baked potatoes 
are wholesome and useful. But the potatoes ought to be baked for 
a long time, and taken out of the oven when they have reached a 
condition that is flaky and mealy. Fried potatoes, if not made 
crisp, are allowable. Mashed potatoes, or those that are boiled and 
brought to a mealy state, are serviceable. While all soggy pota¬ 
toes are injurious, on the other hand it is important that the well 
cooked kind should be made one of the chief articles of the diet, and 
espcially in the morning meal, omitting too much bread. Sweet 
potatoes are not allowable in this diet. 

4. GREENS are not used enough. Beet tops, spinach, dande¬ 
lions and other grasses or succulent leaves have immense value in 
the diet during all times of the year when they can be obtained. 
The trouble is that they are made indigestible by the way they are 
cooked, as the addition of too much grease is not advisable. But 
they have a great value in furnishing bulk, and there is not a case 
of constipation that ought not to yield to their use. The best of 
the greens is spinach, but none of them contains much nutriment; 


CONSTIPATION. 


58 


the chief objection to dandelion being its bitter taste; otherwise one 
kind is as good as another, and we recommend each in turn until 
there is a choice. The proper wav to cook greens is to chop them 
to a fine mass, then cook in water until thoroughly, done; and serve 
them with a dressing of butter. This saves destroying their useful¬ 
ness by the old-fashioned way of cooking them in fat meat. 

5. LETTUCE, asparagus, celery and similar green foods, are 
also very useful. Lettuce is the best for mere bulk, and asparagus 
for both bulk and nutriment. Lettuce should be used with olive oil 
and a bit of lemon juice; it is very palatable and helpful. Aspara¬ 
gus is one of the very best of green foods. Celery has a place in 
the dietary for constipation, but is not very useful when eaten raw; 
it should be cooked in milk until very soft. 

6. Bulk may be secured the year round by the use of the green, 
hard-shelled Hubbard squash. It will keep for years, if looked 
after properly, and may be served as a vegetable dish at the noon 
meal every other day in the months when it is not possible to get 
other kinds of laxative vegetables. It may be cooked by baking it 
in the shell, then dressing it with butter in plenty to which a 
slight bit of salt and some black pepper or celery powder has been 
added. Pumpkin in pies, or any squash in pies, would be valuable 
if the pie-crust were not eaten. 

7. Onions boiled in milk furnish bulk. They are the test of 
constipation; for, if a person is not free, there will be an odor in 
the breath for twenty-four hours after eating the onions. This is 
due to the fact that there is a direct circulation of blood from the ali¬ 
mentary canal to the lungs which affects the breath. Many persons 
who have good teeth but bad breaths do not know how to account for 
the latter; but it is true that the breath gives out the odor from the 
intestines if there is a stoppage there. 

8. STRING BEANS are of the highest value in the treatment 
of constipation, as they afford a food that has much bulk, some 
nutrition and no concentrated nature. When the beans are formed 
in them, they should not be eaten, as green beans are slightly con¬ 
stipating. Very young peas are useful, but as they get older they 
are of an opposite character. Cabbages are likely to cause flatu¬ 
lence, and it is safer to omit them although they afford much bulk. 
If you have any tendency to uric acid or to rheumatism, you 
should not touch any form of cabbage, as it gives rise to calcium 
oxalate in the urine. Very young beets boiled, when served with 


54 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 

olive oil and lemon juice, are both palatable and nutritious, but 
have a special value for their bulk. But green beans can be ob¬ 
tained almost all the year round, as can lettuce and some other 
articles, by judicious management. 

Potatoes and squash are present all the winter, and much of the 
other months. As potatoes begin to give way in the late spring, 
there are many greens and other articles, such as lettuce and as¬ 
paragus, that can take their place to a certain extent. Variety is 
obtainable during most of the year. 

New corn has its place in this dietary, for it comes late in the 
summer and during all the early fall, when other green vegetables 
have given way, or are not abundant. Green corn goes through 
the system about as it enters the stomach; consequently it is bet¬ 
ter to chew it so fine that it will be a milk when it is swallowed, 
and it will be much more serviceable in that condition. 

We come now to foods that are nutritive, but that at the same 
time have an important place in the cure of constipation. 

NUTRITIVE FOODS. 

1. Olive oil should enter largely into the food of persons who 
are constipated. This may be effected by making salads, and there 
are a score or more of nutritious dishes of this kind that almost 
any housekeeper can make. Children are often relieved by being 
given a teaspoonful of plain olive oil just before retiring at night; 
and adults by a dessertspoonful of Lucco oil at the same time. 
Castor oil is a food in the same sense that olive oil is, but it gives 
up less of its nutriment to the system and hurries things onward 
with too little time to be useful. Still it must be considered as a 
laxative food, to be given when the system needs a change. It is 
valuable not only in constipation but is largely used in diarrhoea 
and dysentary. 

2 . OLD BREAD is not only nutritive in the very highest degree, 
but is also useful in this malady, as it is the opposite of constipa¬ 
ting. The older the bread is, that is the longer it has been kept 
after it has been baked, the more valuable it is for this purpose. 
The stalest of old bread, if not moldy or musty, is still better. Peo¬ 
ple do not like it at first; but it has such a wholesome effect on the 
system that it is soon enjoyed if properly served. Dipped in 
gravy of steak, which is not a rich gravy, or toasted to a hard brown 
and then buttered as thickly as possible, or toasted and put into 


CONSTIPATION. 


55 


broths or soups, or toasted and dipped in soft boiled or shirred 
eggs, the old bread becomes liked and even sought after. It has the 
same effect on the palate, after it has been used for a week or two, 
that fresh air has on the lungs in contrast to the foul air of a room, 
or that a line of useful exercise and work will have as opposed to the 
habit of staying in close, stuffy rooms playing cards, or that any real 
benefit has in contrast with utter nonsense and waste of time. The 
palate is easily educated to be sensible. The longer the bread is 
baked, and the greater length of time it is kept after being baked, 
the more useful it is in the cure of constipation. On the other 
hand, the less the flour is cooked, and the newer the bread is, the 
more constipating it will be. These facts are so easily proved that 
they are axioms. 

3. TOASTS are especially beneficial, for they do not cause ir¬ 
ritation that comes from certain foods, and their work is done 
gently and by easy degrees. The toasted bread should be baked for 
not less than two hours, and then kept in a towel for full twenty- 
four hours, after which it may be toasted either lightly or to a deep 
brown. The many ways of serving toast have just been given. 

4. RYE bread baked for eight or ten hours, and then eaten 
when a day old, either as toast or not, is also of value. The half- 
and-half mixture of rye and white flour is useful and more pleasing 
to the taste than either all rye or all wheat. 

5. Whole wheat bread is valuable to be eaten in place of the 
other kinds, as a change or as a regular article of diet. The loaf 
must not be soggy or heavy or gummy; and most of the whole wheat 
on the market is all of these things. Every business like every house 
must have its dumping-ground for the refuse that collects, and 
whole wheat flour and whole wheat breakfast foods are the refuse- 
heaps for the mills and for the bad crops of the country. Do not be 
fooled by the sweet and fascinating promises of the advertisements, 
for it is almost a universal rule that, when the stuff is wretchedly 
bad and useless, the advertising claims are the most attractive and 
boastful. There are hundreds of foods advertised before the 
people to-day that are claimed to be health-giving, brain-making, 
etc., etc., etc., which in fact are positively injurious. Whole wheat 
flour, if beneficial, should make a light colored loaf that will rise 
easily, and as well as any white flour. It should be made from 
hard winter wheat, rich in gluten; and the mills that use such 
flour are located almost exclusively north of the northern line of 


56 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 

the State of Pennsylvania. If there is the least suspicion that 
the flour has been doctored by alum or other chemical to make it 
rise, the concern that sells it or that makes it ought to be con¬ 
demned to perpetual oblivion by an indignant public. Some day 
these rascals will be exposed and driven to the poorhouse. 

6. The best BREAKFAST FOOD for constipation is cracked 
wheat that comes in bulk. It can be soaked over night, then 
cooked soft, then put in the oven just before being served, and 
toasted to a brown. Eaten with cream, but without sugar, it is 
delicious. It can be varied by substituting every other morning 
some hominy grits served in the same way. Corn meal mush fried, 
if the crisp part is omitted, is another good substitute. Avoid 
package foods, as they are often chemically treated to keep them 
crisp or to preserve them from worms. 

7. Corn bread, rye bread, Boston brown bread, whole wheat 
bread, ordinary white bread, toasts of various kinds, and the 
breakfast foods mentioned, furnish an abundant supply of cereal 
foods for the morning and the noon meals; while the diet given 
in the High Regime of the book of Inside Membership will serve 
for the evening meal, except that the latter should be light, and 
finally omitted altogether in case the constipation does not yield. 
This diet is not in fact a diet in the sense of being a denial of 
good foods; for it is closely allied to the plain and old-fashioned 
habits of eating in the better days of the past. 

REGIME FOR CONSTIPATION. 

* Follow the rules just given; especially the last paragraph; but 
adhere to the rules that precede. Know this treatment by heart. 

* * Adopt the first phase of High Regime in the book of Inside 
Membership. Also the full directions for the evening meal in 
High Regime. Do not go contrary to any of the rules given in 
that book, unless they are varied here. 

* * * Drink plenty of cool water before each meal, none at all 
during the meal, and none for an hour after eating. Ice water, 
when used, should be sipped and swallowed very slowly. Take 
none of the drinks named in the forbidden lists of Chapter 21 of 
the book of Inside Membership. Be especially careful to avoid 
soda water and all charged or gaseous drinks. Alcohol in all forms 
should be avoided. You should take all these lists and make up a 


CONSTIPATION. 


57 


schedule for yourself, suited to your tastes and convenience, and 
plan for variety each day. There are articles enough obtainable 
in all parts of the globe for you to follow this plan without difficulty. 

* * * * Create all the saliva possible and give it to the stomach 
during the passage of wholesome food there, but never when there 
is no food going to the stomach. The saliva and the gastric juices 
are not suited to each other unless each has food to act upon, and 
the blood is broken down by the act of swallowing mere saliva, as 
in the use of chewing gum. This gum habit is very injurious, for 
it makes a false use of the saliva and weakens its flow when there is 
good food in the mouth. It also thins and deteriorates its quality. 
The longer you chew good food in the mouth, the easier it will be 
to digest it in the stomach; in fact, it is possible to complete the 
digestion of all sugars and breads or starches in the mouth by long 
chewing. The mouth-glands will take up the food as soon as it 
is digested there, and the stomach never gets it. This is very 
beneficial in the use of uncooked wheat and corn meal or cracked 
corn. But, at the table, eat very slowly, and chew as long as you 
can; swallowing only after the food is thoroughly masticated, and 
never by the aid of any fluid. Coffee, if made by pouring hot 
water over it, and sipped at once without being steeped or cooked or 
re-heated, is good for those who must have it. Ho sugar should be 
taken with it. 

***** Take exercise enough to make a special demand for the 
food value that is locked up in the intestines. Sedentary persons 
are more generally constipated than those who are active; but a 
wrong selection of food will cause even the hardest laborer to be¬ 
come constipated. Those who take cold tea with them and drink 
it as a lunch beverage, give a clue to their habits at home, and many 
laborers are thus addicted to faults that tend to deaden the action 
of the bowels. Ho amount of work or exercise will overcome the 
harm which is done by tea-drinking if there is a tendency to this 
malady. Many articles of food are likewise the cause of constipa¬ 
tion, although the person is not sedentary. The rule, therefore, is 
that if the person is physically active and the foods are adverse to 
freedom of the bowels, the result may be constipation. On the other 
hand, if the person is sedentary and the foods are favorable to free¬ 
dom of the system, the result may nevertheless be unfavorable. 
This brings us to the subject of exercise. 

We do not believe that there is any physical activity, no matter 


58 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO, 












































































CONSTIPATION. 


59 


how well adapted it may be to serve as an aid to a cure, that will 
of itself bring the remedy, when there is no attention to the food. 
Most physicians, when asked what is best to overcome constipation, 
will say that the patient must diet for it, and many advise exercise 
in conjunction with the diet; but not the latter alone, although they 
believe that diet alone will effect a cure. We know of many cases 
that cannot be cured by diet alone, and of many more that do not 
yield at all to the most scientifically arranged exercises. Yet 
there is no case that will not readily give way to the two combined, 
provided the diet is the most effective and the exercise is specially 
adapted to the condition. 

Much importance has been attached by doctors to the use of 
massage and exercise in the cure of constipation. Massage may 
excite the flow of juices to the alimentary canal, but it cannot give 
rise to peristalsis, and without the latter there can be no healthy 
action; but it is true that when the chyme stagnates in the intes¬ 
tine through overcrowding or from the presence of concentrated 
food the massage gives it a start. It cannot be relied upon to 
take the place of peristalsis, for it will not. Then there are rollers 
and kneaders, all of which fail through the principle just stated. 

Exercise is quite a different thing. It employs the body, breaks 
down old tissue, throws out refuse matter, creates a demand 
for the food that is lying locked up in the bowels, and upon every 
channel for its use. All these motives free the liver, and the bile 
is soon actively engaged in creating a healthful peristalsis; pro¬ 
vided all conditions hereinbefore stated by us are present. But 
no amount of exercise can be of avail when the diet is abused. 

A SYSTEM OF GRADED PHYSICAL CULTURE FOR 
USE IN CONSTIPATION. 

By reference to the six illustrations on the adjoining page, it will 
be seen that the exercises are of different kinds and are suited to 
different persons and to varying conditions of strength or weakness. 

Figure 1 is the simplest and easiest of all movements. It 
must be performed standing. Place the hands at the sides of the 
waist as low down as possible; push in with the right hand as you 
bend to the right, then push in with the left hand as you bend to 
the left, and continue until you have gained greater strength of 
arm so that the pushing may be more energetic each time. The 
body must not bend much for the first few days, as it will lead to 


60 SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 

lameness. After that danger is passed, bend more and more until 
you can make yourself very flexible at the sides of the waist. You 
will be surprised to note how much you can gain in this practice of 
bending; at first the body will seem very stiff if you are not used to 
exercise of the kind; but after a while you will be able to bend 
low enough to touch the floor at the sides of the body by releasing 
the hands from the hips as you move downward to the right and 
left. The great value of this movement is the special activity it 
arouses in the intestinal region. It makes a demand for the locked 
up food, and sends the juices naturally among it, besides starting 
peristalsis. This, with a proper diet, will work wonders in pro¬ 
ducing a better condition. Do not try the other exercises until 
you have mastered this. 

Figure 2 is still more powerful, but should follow the practice of 
Figure 1. The trouble will be that you will not bend at the waist 
if you begin with Figure 2 , for the muscles there will not be flex¬ 
ible, and you will, in nine cases out of ten, deceive yourself into 
believing that you are doing it correctly when you are merely bend¬ 
ing at the hips, and this will be useless. In fact, it is rare that a 
person can really bend at the waist muscles in a forward and back 
movement until much time has been spent in practicing Figure 1. 
So remember that haste and too much ambition will spoil your 
progress. Figure 2 requires you to push in on the abdomen with 
both hands and bend forward at the same time; then bend back as 
far as you can, and release the pressure of the hands; then repeat 
and so continue for thirty-two counts. Make the action full and 
decided and very slow. A quick motion is useless in this line of 
practice, while beneficial for other purposes. 

Figure 3 is for a strong man or woman who wishes to give the 
intestines a more thorough kind of exercise. It must be done very 
slowly so as to pull on the abdominal muscles. Take a standing 
position; raise the arms straight over the head as high as possible; 
keep the head between the arms and lean back as far as possible on 
four counts. On count one, lean back about one-fourth the way; on 
count two, lean back half the way; on count three, three-fourths the 
way; on count four, lean back as far as possible. On count five, 
come up one-fourth the way from your backward position and so on 
until count eight brings you back. Repeat. 

Figure 4. Stand, arms akimbo; lower the body half way to the 
floor by bending the knees, standing on the toes, and leaning back. 


CONSTIPATION. 


61 


On count one, incline the head while in this position until the face 
looks straight up; on count two, continue inclining the head back¬ 
ward; on count three, still continue inclining the head backward; 
on count four, incline the head so that the eyes may see the floor 
behind the body. Return the head on four more counts to the first 
position. Repeat. 

Figure 5. Stand with the weight upon the retired limb and let the 
body down to the floor until it rests upon the knee. Throw both 
arms over the shoulders, one over each; keep the forward limb 
straight at the knee. Then follow the directions as to inclining the 
head as they are given in Figure 4 and continue for thirty-two 
counts. 

Figure 6. Kneel. On count one, lean far forward while the 
hands are thrown backward, the palms being down; on count two, 
lean far back while the hands are thrown forward in opposition. 
Continue this for thirty-two counts. 

It will be seen that each exercise is more difficult than the pre¬ 
ceding one. This is to enable the system of practice to meet all 
cases. You must not go beyond your powers. Do not attempt the 
last four until you have succeeded in the highest degree with the 
first two; and, as we have already said, you will not be able to mas¬ 
ter Figure 2 until you have acquired flexibility of the abdominal 
muscles in Figure 1. It is not true that any exercise is beneficial 
in the cure of constipation. All physical activity is beneficial to 
some extent; but, if you wish special results in any case, you must 
have specific exercises adapted to that purpose. The foregoing six 
movements, reaching as they do all degrees of strength and all 
classes of persons, and being directly provided for the cure of con¬ 
stipation, form a complete system in themselves, the value of which 
can be understood only when they have been thoroughly tested. A 
more elaborate system would fall of its own weight, and would be 
merely an attempt to win admiration from the thoughtless who 
measure value by the quantity and not the quality of a thing. 

Small as this little system of exercise is, it has received the 
highest encomiums from physicians and experts in the treatment of 
this malady. 

Habits are either sedentary or active. 

The sedentary person sits much of the time. A person who is 
very active with the brain or with the muscles of the upper half of 
the body while sitting, or with the feet and legs while sitting, 


62 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 

would nevertheless be sedentary. The sitting posture is a bend of 
the abdomen, and while the bend is slight it is enough to pack the 
contents more closely than would otherwise be done. More than 
this, the sitting habit allows, and even tempts, the upper contents 
of the torso or trunk to rest on the liver and the intestines, thus tak¬ 
ing away their full freedom of action, and leading to a packing of 
their contents. 

A person who stands, unless there is much lolling and laziness of 
attitude, releases some of this top pressure from the abdomen and 
avoids the slight bending of the form at that part. It is also the 
case that the standing position favors natural peristalsis, though not 
always enough to induce it. Yet it is very helpful. 

There is no need of sitting one-tenth as much as it prevails in 
your habits. You can stand much of the time, and yet sit all that 
is required of you in places where standing would be rude. Walking 
is also excellent variation of the habit of sitting. Long walks that 
tire are not advisable, nor do we suggest that you stand until you 
are tired. But just count up all the moments of the day that you 
sit and ask yourself how many of such moments could have been 
given to standing as well; and how many of the common duties of 
the day that were performed in the sitting position could have been 
done just as well in the stand posture. You will be surprised to 
know that you have fully fifty per cent, of opportunities for stand¬ 
ing that are now given up to sitting. 

Remember that the sedentary person is a sitter. 

Sedentary and costive are the twin adjectives that are applicable 
at the same time to nine persons out of ten who have this malady. 

Flushing is not suggested, as stated in the first treatment, unless 
your body is filled with deat, and it should be got out. The use 
of the two food-oils, as described in the present treatment, is better, 
for the diet will soon be master of your condition. 

The exercises are best not taken when the food is in the stomach. 
In another treatment we have special exercises for that stage of 
digestion. But constipation occurs when the food is in the intes¬ 
tines, and the exercise should be deferred until an hour or more 
after eating; then it should not be used within an hour of the next 
meal. It may be practiced in the early morning if you are up, as 
you should be, a full sixty minutes before breakfast. Of course no 
exercise is required if the system is too loose, as it will soon be if 
you carry this treatment into full effect. 


CONSTIPATION. 


63 


In bad cases a diet for two days of all fruit, as allowed herein, and 
of all bulk, as allowed herein, would be quickly effective, and, if the 
wonders of the treatment are sought, omit the evening meal, taking 
no food after midday, and eat for breakfast and for the noon meal 
nothing but the allowable fruits and the bulk foods, putting the 
exercises into practice, and observing the rule of standing all you can 
at short intervals, and the other rule of drinking only what is sug¬ 
gested in this treatment and at. the times stated. The danger will be 
a complete reverse of condition with a likelihood of debilitating the 
bowels. You can watch the effect of each meal on your system, and 
act accordingly. Do not trifle with the laws of nature. 

At any time that you find yourself going to the other extreme, use 
boiled milk, hard boiled eggs, toast, heavy meat broths and a flavor¬ 
ing of red pepper in the latter. 

To save the effects of too severe a change of diet, you should at 
all times have hot beef soups, broths and meat extracts for all three 
meals; and, if you have a feeling of depression just before retiring 
any night, no matter whether you have omitted your supper or 
not, you should take a big bowl of hot meat broth with rice just as 
you are about to get into bed. It is wonderfully refreshing and stim¬ 
ulating, and will produce the sweetest slumber. It will also pre¬ 
vent the danger to the kidneys of going to one extreme of diet after 
having formed habits to the contrary. 

A haphazard treatment that brings results at the expense of 
some other function of the body, is not scientific or safe. Medicines, 
for the same reason, should be avoided whenever they can. 

Any extraordinary diet need last but a day or two; the good 
effects will be secured; and then you can adopt the High Regime 
of the book of Inside Membership, until you feel that you are 
permanantly cured, as we are sure you will be in a very short time. 

In drawing to a close, in this the most uniformly successful of 
all the treatments ever offered to the public, we must repeat the 
good advice given in the anti-deat treatment, namely, that you must 
form the habit of encouraging the peristalsis soon after breakfast 
every day. You should go out even if you have no disposition to 
do so, and should make an effort. If it fails on several mornings, 
it will soon come on as a regular habit; and, when it does, it will be 
an act of treason to your health for you to neglect going out. Lazi¬ 
ness may express itself in various ways, but should not be of so 


64 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWO. 

degraded a nature as to deny to nature her most important 
function. 

The question is often asked, why is diet so prominent in the 
cures of constipation and some other maladies ? The answer is this: 
The human body is but a collection of the food that has been eaten. 
It is made of the things that have entered the stomach. They 
have had more to do with bringing on disease, and of necessity 
have more to do with getting rid of it. This is logic and reason. 
Doctors and medical practice are rapidly tending towards diet as 
the chief means, and in many cases, the only means of cure. Sani¬ 
tariums are founded on a few side notions and a good deal of diet¬ 
ing, which could be as well done at home and at great saving. 

We have had one hundred persons who were free in their peris¬ 
talsis, take foods that were constipating, and all of them have 
been made constipated thereby; and we have had an entirely differ¬ 
ent hundred persons who were constipated, take the fruits, the 
bulk foods, and the meat broths as stated, and become almost laxa¬ 
tive; the latter condition being attained when they added the 
exercises and regime; and these two hundred experiments have 
been confirmed in thousands of other cases; all of which answers 
the query why diet has so much to do with the cure. 

Do not adopt a half way acceptance of this treatment. 

It is only nature. 

Live up to such part of it as is suited to your case, and you will 
find the results most pleasing and gratifying. 

When the evil has gone, and a better condition has come, then 
rely for a little while upon High Regime in the book of Inside 
Membership. That book you have, for you could not possess this 
treatment honorably unless you first owned in your exclusive right 
a copy of the book, as it is the foundation of the present mono¬ 
graph as well as of all the treatments that follow. High Regime 
cannot be repeated in this work, as it alone occupies forty pages, 
which is much more than this treatise. 

When you have effected a cure, we wish you to report to us 
stating just the good it has done in your case. We do not publish 
such reports nor make known the names of any of our members, 
but we naturally take an interest in what our methods accomplish! 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 3 



We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 


This Treatment is private. It is rented to the Inside Member to 
whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The Member has no right to loan this 
monograph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or 
to come into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the 
same. This rule does not forbid the use of this Treatment by tne 
Member in behalf of any child or aged person who is actually in 
the Member’s household; but all others must become Inside Mem¬ 
bers of the Ralston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help 
of this Treatment. To become such Members will not cost any¬ 
thing, as may be seen by consulting the final pages of the book of 
Inside Membership, if the steps are taken as there directed. 

5 65 






66 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 

THE GEEAT TEEATMENT FOE COLDS AND LA GEIPPE. 

A cold is an effort of nature to throw off an accumulation of deat. 
La grippe is the attempt of a common germ to destroy the toxins 
of deat before they attract the specific germs of disease. 

These definitions will be sustained by abundant proofs, and it is 
important to fully understand them. 

The common cold is not due to the presence of germs; but is an 
effort to clean out the system in advance of the approach of germs. 

La grippe is a common cold of an increased intensity due to the 
presence of microbes. 

It makes no difference in what way you study the subject the re¬ 
sults will sustain these definitions. 

Let us explain the meanings of the words used. 

Deat is the accumulation of deat food and dead life in the body. 
By dead life is meant that there are forms of bodily structure that 
have done their work and then ceased to be active; they should be 
removed as soon as possible; but, owing to the failure of some of 
the organs and functions, they cannot get free, and they remain 
locked up in the blood and flesh, or in the tissue of the organs. 
They interfere with all these parts and must be thrown off or else 
they will set up a disturbance. 

Toxins are the poisons that arise from deat. You will see an 
illustration of this law in the decay of a dead body which may be 
left in the room of an empty house; as you enter the room a putrid 
condition meets you; the body itself is a rank poison, one touch of 
which on a cut or scratch would cause fatal results; but the air is 
also filled with a horrible stench, and this is due to the poison which 
is emitted by the corpse. It is a toxin on a large scale. 

When the human body has accumulated a mass of deat in its 
blood, flesh or tissue, the dead matter emits a poison of a finer 
grade, but even more injurious in proportion to its quantity than 
that which comes from the putrid flesh. 

Deat comes from many sources, but always from indiscretions that 
may be easily avoided. It is death within life. It impedes the 
action of every part of the body. It is tolerated for a while until it 
becomes too prevalent; then nature sets up a disturbance to get rid 
of it, and the fight that ensues is what is commonly known 
cold. 

Mesh just dead is not yet putrid. 


as a 


COLDS AND LAGRIPPE. 


67 


Deat is free from toxins in its early stages. 

A corpse just dead gives out no offensive odors, nor is it danger¬ 
ous to handle, even with your own body injured by cuts or bruises. 

Deat just dead is close to the life which it springs from, and gives 
out no toxins; nor does it emit them for a long time comparatively 
speaking. As long as the accumulation is only deat, the effort of 
nature to fight out the deat will appear as a common cold and not 
as la grippe. 

Diseases that are attended by microbes or bacteria are efforts of 
nature to clean out the toxins that have arisen from accumulated 
deat. It is one thing to clean out the deat; that is the work of a 
cold. But it is another thing to clean out the toxins; that is the 
work of germs of disease. The toxins are dangerous; the colds are 
not. 

While these propositions may seem rather technical, they can be 
easily understood by all classes of readers if they are carefully re¬ 
viewed. 

All persons, even children, should be told the story of living, as 
it takes place in the body. It is this: 

Food is eaten to sustain life. 

Food soon does its work and leaves its dead matter in the body. 

The life it has built dies every minute, and the dead forms are 
left in the body. 

When the food is wholesome and the used-up material and dead 
life are removed promptly, by the channels established by nature, 
perfect health is the result. 

When the food is not wholesome, and when the used-up material 
is not removed promptly, nature adopts other means of removing 
it. These methods are not always gentle, and are often very severe 
and in some instances are dangerous. 

In the first place, the used-up material and the dead life are 
known as deat until they become foul enough to give out toxins 
or poisons; then they are deat and toxins. 

As deat only, they are fought out of the body by what is known 
as a common cold. 

As toxins they are fought out of the body by bacteria. 

Common toxins, that is the general toxins that are in the body 
and that come from deat in a general way, are fought out by the 
microbes of la grippe. 

If, however, there is one kind of toxin that predominates and 


68 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 


that attracts a special kind of bacteria or germs, a special disease 
will follow; as diphtheria, typhoid, small pox and others. 

This law is constantly proving itself. 

Some of all of these toxins are nearly always present in the 
body, but not in sufficient abundance to attract any one kind of 
germ life; and the result is that the common germs of la grippe 
will attack them. 

This law is seen at work in the results of small pox. If vacci¬ 
nation is general in a community so that small pox does not make 
its appearance, it has done that much toward destroying those 
toxins on which small pox germs feed; and there will be a slight 
but distinct lessening of the epidemics of la grippe in the same lo¬ 
cality. But if vaccination takes place after the small pox epi¬ 
demic has prevailed, the other malady, la grippe, will ravage the 
weakened bodies, for a strong vitality is necessary with which to 
combat it. Small pox eats up only one kind of toxins; while la 
grippe destroys more, and will find many on which to feed even 
after small pox has gone its way. 

Disease is really the good intentions of nature, striving to undo 
the evils done by bad habits in life. If by carelessness you put 
dangerous materials in your house which catch fire, the floods of 
water that are thrown upon the structure are intended to do it 
good; but if the fire has made too much headway the cure will be 
as bad as the cause. So in the efforts of nature to fight out the 
toxins that you have put in your body; if the latter are too numer¬ 
ous or too prevalent, the bacteria will thrive too much in their fight 
to get rid of them, and death may follow; just as too much water 
may completely ruin the house. 

Bacteria, in devouring the toxins, set up their own life within 
the body, and they live on the tissue, the blood and other parts of 
the body, thus doing harm. But it is their work that starts the 
disease, whatever it may be. 

Nature knows that it is better to throw off the deat while yet it 
is only deat, and she makes you “ catch cold,” on very little pro¬ 
vocation, in the hope that the deat will be disposed of. But mod¬ 
ern methods of living have introduced so many new poisons in food 
and drink that the deat emits its toxins in greater virulence, and 
the bacteria of la grippe is attracted. If it did not intervene, the 
toxins would be so abundant that few persons would survive the 
attacks of the more dangerous forms of disease. 


COLDS AND LA GRIPPE. 


69 


Thus it is seen that a cold is free from danger in and of itself. 
But la grippe is a more serious affair; yet it is the least dangerous 
of the bacterial maladies. It leaves after effects that are more to 
be feared than its own attack, in the general average of cases. But 
any person would much prefer la grippe to diphtheria, small pox, 
scarlet fever and the other germ diseases. 

COMMON COLDS 

We will first look at the nature of common colds, in the hope 
that we may be of service to the world in preventing and in curing 
them. 

They are merely the effort of nature to drive the deat out of the 
body. Hence they are blessings in the form of evil. It is much 
better not to have the deat in the body; and we will try to induce 
you to take that view of it; but, being there, it must be driven out 
if possible before toxins follow when germs of disease must then 
be let in to do the work. 

A cold is rather a heat; why it could be so badly named is 
hardly understood, for it is not in any sense a cold. Cold air is 
much more likely to cure it than to cause it. 

A cold is a fight, an irritation, a congestion sometimes, but al¬ 
ways a distrubance in which the attempt is being made to force 
deat out of the body. Deat ordinarily, if not tod abundant as from 
too much bad food, would escape through the regular channels, the 
pores of the skin, the lungs, the intestines and the many mem¬ 
branes of the body. The last named pass the fluids back and forth 
in their duties, and they are soonest clogged when the skin, the 
lungs and the intestines do not do their work. 

By continual passing to and fro through the many membranes 
that abound in the body, the deat sets up obstructions that lead to 
the final outburst of nature, and then the cold ensues in earnest. 

But it is a mis-named malady. 

In ordinary terms, a cold is an attempt of the poisons of the 
blood to escape through the membranes, thereby clogging them and 
being held in the body. This has always been known to doctors as 
the true action of a cold; hence they say that the word is not a cor¬ 
rect term for the reason that a cold is something quite different 
from what its name implies. It is often a fever, always a catarrh, 
and always a congestion of one or more membranes of the body. 


70 SPEC I A 1/ TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 


If we look in the medical books for a definition of “ cold,” we 
find it always called a catarrh. It is also true in fact that every 
cold is a catarrh in its first or second*- stage. A cold is caught in 
many ways; but there is an immense difference between the cause 
of a cold and starting of it. The cause of a powder explosion 
is the nature of the powder; but the starter is the match or spark. 
No one claims that the spark blew up the powder-magazine. It 
was the powder that did it. The spark was not at all dangerous 
by itself. 

A cold* may be started by a low temperature, or by a high tem¬ 
perature, or by dampness, or by chilliness, or when a person 
sits on a stone step or brick wall, or on the ground, or stands 
on a cold sidewalk in conversation; or the cold may be “ started 99 
by loss of sleep, or by an attack of indigestion, or by bad air in 
a room, etc., etc., but all these are “ starters ” only, just like the 
match, spark, or percussion cap. They do not “ cause ” the cold. 
They are not the gun-powder nor the toxins. 

We have given more attention to the study of colds than to any 
other subject. Our opportunities for experiment and observation 
have been greater than any enjoyed by other organizations; and 
we have sought the facts without reference to any theories. The 
facts that have come to us during the past year have been so over¬ 
whelmingly convincing that we now stake everything upon them. 
In a brief summary these may be stated as follows: 

1. Colds may be “ started 99 by low temperature, dampness, 
chilliness, drafts, loss of sleep, indigestion, and bad air; but these 
are not the “causes” of colds. 

2. There is but one CAUSE of “ colds” and that is deat in 
the blood. This deat generates the toxins that are poisons; 
and these poisons try to force their way out through the many 
membranes of the body. 

3. If there is no deat in the blood, it is an impossibility to get 
“ cold,” no matter how wanton and reckless the exposure; just as 
an explosion is impossible if there is no powder or other thing to 
explode. 

4. If there is a certain amount of deat in the body, the cold 
is sure to follow; and no person can be so careful as to avoid it. 
“Murder will out,” and likewise deat will out. If it is there, 
and the quantity is excessive, nothing on earth will prevent its 
coming out, 


COIyDS AND DA GRIPPE- 


71 


Now we have stated the four greatest facts in the history of 
disease; for every malady has a similar cause, the variations being 
due to the kinds of toxins generated. 

These four facts are new to the world, although the conditions 
they describe have been going on since the birth of man. These 
four facts must be accepted by the medical profession, for they 
will revolutionize the whole plan and science of doctoring. These 
four facts are yours to act upon. 

Now give way to a new period of security and supreme happi¬ 
ness, for the whole matter of perfect health is easily within the 
grasp of every human being. 

While the facts are new, we have said that the conditions they 
describe are as old as the race itself. By some blind instinct, the 
science of the world as well as its common sense have been work¬ 
ing to get the poisons out of the body. Why have they tried 
to start perspiration? Because they hoped to get rid of certain 
poisons. Why have they always tried physicking? Because they 
hoped to drive out certain poisons. Why did they use blood¬ 
letting? Because the more blood they drew off, the more poisons 
they got rid of. Why are catarrhal douches used? Because war 
is being made upon these poisons. Why, in every case of pneu¬ 
monia, do the doctors order jackets made of oiled silk lined with 
absorbent cotton? Because the silk draws out the poisons and 
the absorbent cotton absorbs them. Why have poultices, blisters, 
leeches, plasters, etc., been used for ages? Because these things 
draw out the poisons that are in the blood. Why have medicines 
been used for thousands of years? Because they neutralize, in 
part at least, the toxins that are generated by the deat in the 
body. Thus, in a natural way, guided by a blind instinct, the 
scientific mind and the lay common sense of the world, have 
aimed their blows in the dark at the hidden enemy of human 
life. 

The cure of a cold is easily accomplished by reducing the quan¬ 
tity of deat taken into the system daily. 

Two facts are very remarkable. One is this: if you have deat 
in the system, you will surely catch cold when its poisons are 
abundant, and no precaution will save you. Another fact is this: 
if you have no deat in the system you cannot catch cold. These 
things are easily provable by you. 

Study this proposition until you recognize its truth. 


72 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 

A low temperature may be endured by any person whose body 
does not contain deat. That person may sit in a draft, stand 
in damp places, or take every possible risk, and not get “ cold.” 
There are many persons who are doing so to-day. Of course 
no one can allow the body to freeze; and no one who is unused 
to low temperatures can escape the feeling of discomfort, for 
such persons will shiver with the coolness, like a dog just out of 
the water; but colds, catarrhs, etc., will not follow. 

It can be conclusively proved by you and by anyone who chooses 
to try it, that influenza, la grippe, pneumonia, consumption and 
like maladies are made impossible by getting deat out of the 
system. As the experiment costs nothing, there can be no harm 
in trying it. 

Here is a simple test of this remarkable law: Take any deat- 
producing food; there are many kinds, and they are abundant; 
but take any of the most common such as new raised bread made 
from yeast; or any alum-baked bread; or any biscuit; or any 
baking powder bread or cake, new or old; or any of the fancy 
biscuit or crackers on the market; or any quickly-baked bread 
(that is, bread that has been less than two hours in baking) ; or 
any of the other common foods that produce deat; and feed 
these, or any of them, regularly for a few days or weeks; and 
then, as colds or catarrhs develop, give a dose of castor-oil such 
as a physician will prescribe to “help a cold;” or any other pur¬ 
gative for the same purpose; and the stools will show a large 
quantity of deat in the form of a slimy mass. 

This fact is readily proved. 

How vary this experiment by omitting the deat-producing 
foods, but give similar purgatives; and the slimy mass will be 
absent. Ho cold or catarrh will be present in any part of the 
body. If this is true, and every intelligent human being can 
prove it so, where rests the fearful responsibility for the havoc 
produced by the colds, catarrhs and influenzas that everywhere 
prevail? These are the warnings of the graver consequences that 
soon must follow. 

The medical treatises say there are more cases of la grippe 
now than ever before; and some writers assert that this special 
malady is due to microbes that have come into existence within 
a few decades. The fact is that la grippe is the offspring of 
toxins due to the use of foods that are now more common than 


COLDS AND LA GRIPPE. 


72 

ever before; just as the supposedly new disease of appendici¬ 
tis is due to toxins peculiar to this age. Many new kinds of 
food and food-poisoning are eaten now that were never employed 
before, such as borax in meat and alum in bread; and these are 
sure to give rise to new toxins that will produce new diseases. 
If next year a new chemical were to be used to cover biscuits and 
crackers that are sold in packages, you may rest assured that some 
new disease would spring up; for each malady has its toxin, and 
each toxin has its deat-producing food. 

“A cold 99 is nature’s warning effort to drive out the deat 
before its toxin leads to disease. It is for this reason that a 
person may have many “ colds ” before the fatal malady sets in. 
The “ cold ” gives warning of the presence of deat in the blood. 
This deat appears in the form of a slimy mucus that is a rank 
poison. It is an irritant. It inflames and congests whatever 
membrane it passes through. When there is but little excess of 
deat in the body, the cold is a slight one, and the catarrh is 
slight. When the excess is great, the cold is very severe and the 
disturbance dangerous. 

The slimy, poisonous deat will force itself through any mem¬ 
brane that will give it the readiest passage; and generally the 
lungs are flooded with the mass. This is called pneumonia. If 
the mass of slimy deat hardens, death follows from suffocation 
at the lungs. Sometimes it comes through the membranes at 
the throat, or in the bronchial passage, or in the nose, and catarrh 
follows with its attendant wasting away of the surface of the 
useful membranes. If no deat-food had been eaten, no such 
result would follow; for you cannot get catarrh without such food. 

The body is divided into two parts. The first part is non- 
membranous, and consists of arms and legs. These have no mem¬ 
branes, and consequently do not catch “cold,” nor get catarrh. 

The second part of the body is membranous, and includes the 
head and trunk. The head is full of membranes; even the skull 
is lined with a membrane, and the brain is incased in one. Con¬ 
gestion of the latter is called meningitis , and generally means 
death. The nose is lined with a membrane; so is the whole pha¬ 
rynx, or throat, from the naso- to the laryngo-cavity; so is the 
mouth; and so is the passage to the lungs. 

The pleural-cavity, the chest-frame, the heart-cavity, the stom¬ 
ach, the liver-cavity, the kidneys, bladder, intestines, and all the 


74 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 

details of the complex construction of the head and trunk, pre¬ 
sent an endless series of membranes. These are porous. In 
health they allow certain kinds of fluid to pass through their 
pores. When deat is too abundant it seeks to escape by the 
same passages, but its poison inflames them and causes conges¬ 
tion; and this is what all the world calls a “cold.” Nature gives 
her warnings mildly at first. 

There can be no cold unless deat be present in the blood; 
and there can be no deat unless certain kinds of food have been 
eaten. These are fully described in other parts of this book 
and need not be discussed here. 

Why is it that one person will catch cold more easily than an¬ 
other? The answer is plain. The person that has the greatest 
excess of deat will catch “ cold ” and never know how it started. 
The common remark, “I am subject to colds,” means that the 
person is loaded with deat. How often we have seen such per¬ 
sons extra careful, and yet catch “cold,” while another might 
be very careless and escape. No two persons are alike for the 
reason that no two have an equal amount of deat in the system. 
Not long ago a man said, “ I always catch colds, no matter how 
fussy I am in trying to avoid them. My neighbor never has a 
cold, and he exposes himself to all kinds of weather and danger. 

I guess he must have hardened his system to it, and I am going 
to do the same.” This man caught a fatal pneumonia after his 
first exposeure to the hardening process. He did not know that 
his body was loaded with poisons that sought to escape; and when 
he permitted them to come forth all at once, his life was the pen¬ 
alty. 

No two persons are alike in anything, for they have different 
quantities of deat in the bodies. What is good for one may be 
had for another. It is always best for a deat-loaded person 
to take no risks in catching “ cold,” for one great exposure gen¬ 
erally means death, while care will keep off the fatal malady, 
although it will not avert the slight cold or even sometimes the 
heavy cold. It is better to have a hundred heavy colds, or a thou¬ 
sand slight colds, than to arouse all the poisons in the body at one 
time and lose life. Yet, if you possess this deat, the utmost 
care will not protect you from catching “ cold.” 

On the other hand, if you do not eat deat food, you can not catch 
a cold,” even if you are promised a huge financial reward to se- 


COLDS AND LAGRIPPK. 


75 


cure one by the most flagrant exposure. The experiment is so 
easily made that you ought to try it. 

A person who cannot catch “cold” cannot get sick; for a 
“ cold ” is a lesser form of every known malady. The flow of 
toxins of deat through some membrane, and its consequent con¬ 
gestion, is the beginning of each kind of disease, whether the incit¬ 
ing cause has been directly bacterial or not. 

When you die, unless you are killed by accident or wear out 
in peaceful old age, you will pass through one or more “colds,” 
probably a long series of them, and each attack will be slightly 
worse than the others, until the collapse comes. 

Nearly all infants and children are subject to colds. If they 
are fed on deat-producing foods, these colds will be more abun¬ 
dant; but if you reduce the use of such foods, the colds will be 
less frequent; and, if the children are not given any such foods, 
they will not have “ colds,” nor will they be sick. These are 
facts, not theories. They can be easily proved, and without ex¬ 
pense. The right kinds of food are at your command on every 
side, and in ample abundance. They cost less, and afford more 
genuine pleasure if cooked properly. 

When a person can go a whole year and have never a cold, not 
a sneeze, nor a catarrh; when no mucus flows or thickens in the 
nose, or drops in the throat; then that person is the master 
engineer of the life within the body, and is on the road to that 
condition where disease cometh not and old age stands aloof. 

If you cannot boast of this condition, the way to attain it is 
very easy. Just read this treatise until you understand it; and, 
when its truths come home to you like an inspiration, turn about 
and adopt them in your daily life. 


PREVENTION OF COLDS. 

A cold is a blessing in the form of an evil. In setting up the 
disturbance that attends it, the accumulated matter is being forced 
out of the body, but through the wrong channels. It should go out 
through the lungs, the skin and the intestines; but seeks to escape 
through the membranes, such as the lining of the nose, where it 
produces stoppage; or the lining of the lung-cover, where it leads 
to congestion of the lungs in slight degree; or at the stomach, 
where it becomes gastritis; or in the intestines themselves, or at 



76 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 


the kidneys or other place where there is a membrane through 
whose portals it can pass. 

A continual cold in the head is the persistent effort of nature to 
pass the deat, which is there called phlegm, through the membranes 
of the nasal cavity and the throat. This place of escape is sought 
for the reasons to be stated: 

1. There is not enough activity of the regular channels, the skin, 
the lungs and the intestines. 

2. Assuming that there may be such activity in sufficient form, 
the food that is daily eaten produces more deat than can be passed 
off through the regular channels named. 

It certainly is not a creditable performance for nature to be 
compelled to use the membranes of the nose and throat as means 
of escape for the poisons; yet a vast majority of the people of the 
world are thus side-tracking the plan of normal health by using 
the front of the house for ejecting the ashes and offal. It is just 
as though you carried the refuse and the garbage from your kitchen 
into the parlor and there had it removed from the premises. The 
best senses, sight and smell and taste, are at the front of the head 
where this offal is being sent out in the form of offensive phlegm. 

The method of avoiding this abnormal state of affairs is to make 
use of the natural and intended channels for the escape of these 
poisons. The membranes of the nasal cavity, of the throat and of 
the lung chambers, are not by any manner of means the proper 
avenues of emission for the poisons. 

The lungs have their functions to perform by removing certain 
of the material. 

The pores of the skin are assigned an enormous share of the duty 
and have certain poisons to emit. They are not one-tenth as 
active as they should be. 

The intestines have other duties to attend to, and they are gen¬ 
erally out of condition, either slow to act or too free, and conse¬ 
quently a cause of loss of nutrition by hurrying the food out be¬ 
fore its good has been absorbed into the system. 

Of the persons who catch cold easily, not one in a thousand makes 
even half use of the lungs; this branch of life is more neglected than 
the others, because the habits of the people favor a weak respiration. 

A little arithmetic may come into use here. If a person ordina¬ 
rily exhales one per cent, of the amount of air that can be exhaled 
under a better development of the lung power, it must be true that 


COEDS AND LAGRIPPE. 


77 


such person holds back ninety-nine per cent, of the poisons that the 
lungs might drive out, provided the increased respirations carried 
the same rate of increase of emitted poisons. 

Every out-going breath takes with it, not only carbon dioxide, 
but also much other dead material; as can be shown by collecting 
the contents in receptacles set for the purpose. A person who 
breathes into a bottle, the top of which is closed after each exhala¬ 
tion, will displace the good air, if arrangements are made for the 
latter to rise and pass out, a long tube being employed to allow 
the breath to cool before reaching the bottle; and the same air thus 
collected will kill a rat; and enough of it will destroy human life. 
If the contents of an ordinary breath are analyzed, and compared 
with the contents of an exhalation of double the amount in cubic 
measurement, the results will show that there has been twice the 
quantity of poison emitted. 

The meaning of this is that, if you can double the amount of 
air that you exhale, you will double the amount of poisons that you 
send out of the body. Whether a further increase of exhaled air 
per minute, or in any given period of time, would send out the same 
relative increase of poisons, is not important. It is enough if you 
can get rid of twice the amount by the lungs that you now emit. 
This doubling of the release of bad matter is the goal of this treat¬ 
ment as far as the lungs are concerned. 

Before we proceed with the plan of action, we wish to compare it 
with that employed by physicians. 

The latter do not seek to make use of the lungs as an evenue of 
escape, when they strive to drive off the poisons, in cases of severe 
colds. “My daughter is subject to constant colds,” says a fond 
mother, as she asks her family physician to take her in charge and 
effect a cure. Struggle ever so hard, he will fail with medicines. 
They are given to tone up the system, to make the vitality better, 
etc., etc., all of which is a bald impossibility. 

The physicians physic. That is why they are called physicians. 
In order to physic, they must move the bowels. They got the 
name because they depended upon freeing the bowels for almost 
every attack of sickness that they treated, and colds were present 
in most of these attacks. Freeing the system of its accumulations 
will give relief to a cold if attention is paid to other matters. 

Not only did the doctors free the bowels, but they also recognized 
the necessity of opening the pores. Sweating medicines were given. 


78 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 

Then they soaked the feet in hot water and in mustard water, to 
heat and stimulate the pores and thereby draw off the material that 
had clogged the system. More than this, they put on drawing- 
plasters, and modern inventions have taken their place to some ex¬ 
tent; but the whole purpose is to draw out the accumulated material. 
Some gave diuretics to draw off the share of the poisons through the 
kidneys; and these organs dispose of some of it, as may be seen 
from the excretions following an effort to throw off a cold. 

All these methods show conclusively that a cold is an accumula¬ 
tion of dead material in the blood and tissue; this we call deat; 
and the fight is to get it out of the body. There is no plan of 
treatment to-day that is in vogue in any of the systems of medical 
practice, no matter how modern or how scientific, that does not 
proceed upon the basis of a clogged body. 

All kinds of treatment centre upon this one basis. They act 
upon the channels of excretion, the pores, the bowels, the kidneys 
and drawing from the membranes; but they do not act upon the 
lungs, which is one of the most important of all the channels of 
excretion. 

If the patient who has been treated for a cold were to keep 
further accumulations from the body by care and regime, there 
would be an end of all colds; for, when the deat has once been got 
out, no more will come in unless it is put in. But the very people 
who get cured of a cold go on adding more deat food and more 
poisons from bad habits, and they wonder why it is that they are 
so easily subject to colds. 

The tendency to catch cold is due to the fact that, when once the 
system has been congested by the accumulated deat, the membranes 
are made sore and weak by the irritation. They then draw the 
deat from the blood rather than permit it to go on and out through 
the proper channels. It is necessary not only to cure the condition, 
but also to heal the membranes; for a persistent series of colds will 
result in a breaking down of the lungs, or the invasion of tubercu¬ 
losis, or the more quickly acting enemity of pneumonia. Some 
persons go along for years with sore membranes, either of the nasal 
cavity, the throat or the lungs; they suffer from the slightest ex¬ 
posure; and while their attacks are not generally severe, they are 
frequent and distressing by their debilitating effects. 

These are the various conditions to be met with in dealing with 
the cure of a cold. It is not only necessary to get rid of the deat 


COLDS AND LAGRIPPE. 


79 


that has accumulated, but the soreness of the membranes all 
through the body must be overcome. The usual method of sweat¬ 
ing, purging, soaking the feet and otherwise drawing out the ac¬ 
cumulations, is not enough. Medicines do not reach the sore mem¬ 
branes. .Nor is it proper to leave the cured body to take care of 
itself after the supposed danger has passed. These facts show that 
the true treatment foreruns, attends and follows the conditions 
that produce the cold. 

As we have said, one of the most neglected regions of attention 
is that of the lungs; and it is necessary that we should first intro¬ 
duce this region to your attention, as it has so important a bearing 
in the cure, as well as in the preceding and following care of the 
malady. 

We have shown that you can easily double the amount of air 
that you inhale and exhale; and also that the increased respira¬ 
tion carries off double the quantity of deat and toxins. But it is 
irksome to have to practice specially for this end. Busy people 
do not have the time. It is also not beneficial to strain the lungs 
by heavy efforts at respiration. You cannot make the lost time of 
neglect by taking up a severe plan of exercise either of the lungs or 
of the muscles. Habits are what nature demands, not artificial 
practice. 

The following facts must also be borne in mind: 

1. The lungs have their special deat and toxins to throw off; but 
will help the pores, the bowels and the kidneys to a slight extent, 
although they will not do the work of those organs. 

2. The pores have their special deat and toxins to remove, and 
will help the bowels and the kidneys, specially the latter, but will 
not help the lungs by doing the work that is assigned to the duty 
of respiration. There is a slose relationship between the pores and 
the kidneys, as is seen in getting rid of uric acid, which is one of 
the chief causes of rheumatism; the pores will help out when the 
kidneys fail, but only to a slight extent. 

3. No one pretends to claim that the work of the bowels can 
be transferred to some other part of the body. The very attempt 
to put it upon the lungs will cause the latter to become foul. The 
skin of a constipated person is never sweet and wholesome, show¬ 
ing that the pores will not undertake the work. 

4. The great law is that each of the channels of excretion must 
do its own work in its own way, and not depend upon some other 


80 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 

part of the body to perform its tasks. The demoralization of the 
plan of nature is seen in the fact that, when some channel of ex¬ 
cretion stops its work, the membranes take it up; and they should 
have nothing to do with it under normal conditions. 

5. The lungs, therefore, must be brought into commission for 
the purpose of maintaining the purposes of nature in throwing off 
a certain share of deat and toxins. 

6. But the lungs should do their work by forming new habits, 
and not on special occasions. It has been proved by experiment 
that they may do double their accustomed work if trained to it in a 
natural way. 

7. It must never be forgotten that the lungs are not to be made 
channels of the general poisons of the body that ought to go out 
by the pores, the kidneys and the bowels; and, therefore, the habit 
of double-respiration must not be taken up when the pores, the 
kidneys and the bowels are not doing their accustomed work. The 
fad for deep breathing that really accomplished wonderful results 
under favorable conditions, was employed as a means of curing all 
sorts of ailments. It should have accompanied only the free con¬ 
dition of all the other channels of excretion; for breathing has a 
two-fold action: it carries off deat and toxins, and it also brings 
in oxygen for purifying the blood by a chemical change; and this 
excretory action may take off too much of the poisons of the 
body by the lungs. 

We make this statement for the purpose of showing that deep 
breathing is not to be employed at hazard. It is true that the 
health is better when the respiration is deeper; and it is also true 
that the habit of deepening the respiration will benefit the general 
health, if there are no opposing conditions such as constipation, 
sluggish pores and sedentary life. 

When used for the purpose of throwing off its share of the ex¬ 
cretions that cause colds, the action of breathing is known as 

DOUBLE-RESPIRATION. 

It is but one of the methods to be employed, and cannot be used 
alone. What else must be done will be stated later on. But 
double-respiration is to be made a habit and not an exercise. 

The first step to be taken is to learn to exhale more, not inhale 
IHQre, The attempt to take a deeper breath, without emptying the 


COLDS AND LAGRIPPE. 


81 


lungs, is like trying to fill a basket with new goods when the old are 
crowding it. 

Learn to empty the lungs more and more each day. 

Pay no attention to the inhalations; they will take care of them¬ 
selves. Do not retard them, hut give them full sway to do as they 
please. 

The habit of letting out more air is what is sought. 

All exhalations should be slow and steady, and if there is true 
health back of the action, the lungs will take on a sort of rebound 
which will draw a great volume of air into the lungs. If this re¬ 
bound does not occur after a few days of practice in emptying the 
lungs, you may then know that your vitality is low. 

The chest frame is usually too stiff to allow of much range of 
action. The best way to begin to train it is to lie flat on the back 
on the floor or bed, and exhale slowly all the air you can; then 
allow the lungs to rebound by as full an inhalation as it will take; 
and after this place the hands on the lower part of the chest so 
that they rest at the edge of the ribs, almost in front but slightly 
to the right and left of the centre; and, ^s you exhale, press the 
hands on the ribs so as to help the air go out. 

Quickly remove the hands so as to allow the lungs to take their 
rebound if you have th§ vitality for that. 

This pressure of the hands should accompany every other exhala¬ 
tion ; that is the second, the fourth, the sixth, etc., and should never 
be permitted when the air is entering the lungs. 

Persons who have colds, or who are subject to them, breathe in 
short action. By comparing their respiration with that which 
they can perform under a little effort, it is found that they breathe 
only one-sixth of their acquired habit. 

To double this range of respiration is not at all difficult if you 
will put your mind on it for a few days. The practice should begin 
at a time when the skin is active, the bowels free and the fresh air 
abundant. We do not recommend the use of deep breathing when 
a person is constipated, as it forces the lungs to take up poisons 
that should go out by other channels. It is true that the lungs 
should carry off more deat and toxins than they do, but this does 
not give the right to put other burdens upon them. 

When the bowels are not free the best course, in case you are not 
making use of the treatments for anti-deat and constipation, is to 
follow the diet of high regime in the book of Inside Membership, 
6 



82 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 


If there is a clogged condition, the nse of olive oil salads, and a 
dessertspoonful of the oil before each meal and before retiring at 
night, should be depended upon. If this will not remove the diffi¬ 
culty, or if a heavy cold has settled down upon the lungs, then take 
a liberel dose of castor oil, not the special makes of the oil, but the 
straight castor oil, followed by a chocolate cream as soon as taken so 
as to cut off the offensive taste. 

This will carry away much of the deat that is being held in the 
system. 

In addition to this, every means must be taken to keep the pores 
open, especially those in the body below the lungs, unless there is 
inflammation of the latter; and in that case, as in all acute forms 
of disease or sickness, it should always be deemed the wisest course 
to call in your family physician. 

The use of the old-fashioned mustard bath for the feet is still 
one of the best forms of treatment. The water should begin with 
half the quantity needed, into which half a cup of mustard has been 
poured. Then add hot water, as hot as can be borne, little by little 
until the pail is filled, or whatever receptacle has been used. The 
added water must be very hot, for the feet and lower legs will en¬ 
dure a very great heat if given gradually. Then it is well to pour 
out a quart of water and add a quart in its place, and so continue 
until fifteen minutes have been spent in this foot-bath. To soak 
the feet in water that is allowed to cool while the feet are in it, is 
not by any means hygienic. The purpose of this kind of a bath is 
to draw the deat from the blood, or as much of it as passes out by 
the pores; and all the blood of the body will have passed in fifteen 
or twenty minutes, as far as its contents can be reached in this 
way. 

During the presence of a cold, all the wearing apparel that can 
be comfortably borne should be put on and kept on, not only when 
you are in bed at night but during the day. This, if properly done, 
will keep the skin moist and warm, and greatly aid in throwing off 
the deat while holding in the natural heat of the blood. 

Over-clothing the body is one of the most approved methods of 
dealing with a cold. It means to wear as much clothing as you can 
comfortably endure, and thus retain the natural heat. At the same 
time you must reduce the artificial warmth of the room, if you are 
inactive indoors. The thermometer at seventy degrees in winter 
and seventy-four in summer represents the normal temperature 


COLDS AND LAGRIPPE. 


83 


that should surround the body, and the clothing should make up for 
the comfort that may be needed in addition. 

The first steps in dealing with a cold are therefore: 

1. Free action of the bowels. 

2. The foot-bath maintained at a maximum temperature by the 
constant addition of very hot water, and continued for fifteen 
minutes so as to come in contact with as much of the circulation as 
possible. 

3. Over-clothing the body. This keeps the pores open and re¬ 
tains the heat that is generated by nature, or what is known as the 
natural heat of the body. 

4. Reducing the artificial heat of the room if it is in time of 
cold weather. This compels the body to depend on its own heat and 
not on the warmth or closeness of the room. 

5. When these four steps are taken, the lungs are ready to begin 
their work in the manner we have already described. They should 
exhale all the air possible, and allow the rebound of an ingoing 
breath to fill up the space they have made empty. If the sore 
membranes are to be healed, the air should come from out of doors, 
and it should be in the sunlight or else in a place where the sun 
has shone during the day, in case the practice is done at night. 

This new habit should be gradually adopted, and maintained at 
all times. That nature will take it up is seen from the fact that 
respiration during sleep is deeper when it follows a day of practice 
in deep breathing. After the cold begins to subside the over-cloth¬ 
ing should be lessened by degrees until it is no longer necessary; 
but there is an excellent principle that the body ought to be made 
warm by clothing rather than by the outside heat of a room. 

The bowels will retain their freedom if high regime is followed 
as stated in the book of Inside Membership. The pores of the 
skin will also come into their best condition under the same regime. 

Neither can be neglected with safety. 

While the cold is on, there should be very little food eaten that 
is likely to tax the nerves of digestion; and we recommend the 
following diet at that time only: 

1. Milk sipped and not drank. When it is sipped, it is digested 
at the throat and never reaches the stomach. The milk ought to 
be taken fresh, or else brought to a boil, but not boiled. One glass 
at the morning meal, and then one every two hours until bedtime, 
will be very helpful in the effort to cure the cold, 


84 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 

After the first day, take the milk as stated, but add the white of 
a fresh egg to each glass of milk. 

On the third day take the same nourishment as on the second 
day, but add a broth at each meal; omitting the extra meals if 
not hungry. 

On the fourth day, take the same as on the third, but add some 
toast that is made from the kind of bread that is recommended in 
chapter eleven of the book of Inside Membership. The toast should 
be eaten at all three meals. 

After the fourth day, enter upon the high regime of the book of 
Inside Membership. Remain in that regime until the body has 
become strong enough to withstand colds. 

HEALING THE SORE MEMBRANES. 

The nature of sunlit air is very healing if there are no poisons 
present in it. The air also destroys germs of disease if it is com¬ 
bined with the rays of the sun. There is no antiseptic that will 
so readily annihilate tuberculosis germs as air and sunshine, if 
the air is freely moving. 

A cold in the body is always present in some membrane. It is 
a breaking through of the pent up accumulations of deat which have 
not been able to get away by the usual channels, and now seek 
to force their passage through the pores of the membranes, or in¬ 
ternal linings of the body. Being poisonous they set up an irri¬ 
tation of the membranes, and these remain sore for many days after 
the cold has spent its force. Before the soreness is healed, another 
cold and further irritation come on which keep the inflammation 
present in one form or another all the time. 

It is, therefore, of the highest importance to heal up the first con¬ 
dition as soon as possible. 

The air should never he forced into the lungs, nor held there by 
special energy if there is the least soreness. The inhalations should 
be noiseless and gentle, but should all the time be made stronger 
and deeper. The slightest sound of air passing through the nose 
or throat shows that force is being employed. The respiration 
should be silent, slow, easy and gentle in the highest degree. The 
sunlight and the air should be encountered out of doors, and not 
at open windows. If the day is cloudy, it is sure to be succeeded 
by the sunshine sooner or later, and advantage should be taken of 
the free air. 


Cotfrs AND DA GRIPPE. 


85 


Colds are taken at open windows, owing to the two tempera¬ 
tures that are always to be found at such places. Out of doors is not 
the locality in which colds are caught, unless you stand on the 
cold sidewalk, the damp ground, or in the storm, or otherwise run 
risks as when you have thin-soled shoes on. When on the ground or 
walk, keep moving. If you are on wooden platforms or steps, or 
piazzas, you will not readily catch cold out of doors except when the 
system is loaded with deat; and you will be sure to catch it then, 
no matter how careful you are. It must break through and will 
do so in spite of all the precautions you may take. Here are two 
rules: 

1. The more deat you have accumulated in your body the more 
readily you will take cold, even when not careless or exposed. 

2. The less deat you have in your body, the greater must be 
the exposure and carelessness in order to induce a cold. 

Fastidious and superficial minds take pleasure in disputing these 
laws of nature; but they may be readily proved by any intelligent 
person who cares to make the experiment and observation. 

The more time you spend in the sunlit air, and the deeper the 
respirations become, alternating with the most complete expirations, 
the sooner will the soreness go out. 

The use of gum arabic, also of the white of egg, is helpful, as 
they are agents of healing. The development of large numbers of 
fags, as noted in the latter part of this treatment*, will establish a 
permanent relief from the tendencies of colds and la grippe. 


LA GRIPPE. 

It is undoubtedly true that the difference between a common cold 
and la grippe is that the former is due to deat and its toxins, while 
the latter is attended by the presence of germs or bacteria. The 
supposed increase of the latter malady has been ascribed to many 
causes, but it is safe to sav that it keeps pace with the growing in¬ 
difference of the public towards the food that enters the stomach. 
You cannot get la grippe unless you get catarrh in some form, and 
you cannot get catarrh without having indulged in improper food 
of some kind. These are axioms in the science of sickness. 

The food is the basis, the gunpowder, of the case, and the expos¬ 
ure is the applied match. 



66 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE). 


An illustration of the ease with which la grippe may become an 
epidemic is seen in the following experience: A family of eight 
persons, their ages running from ten to fifty-four, had lived in 
their own home for some years, but had entered a small hotal where 
they could be free from the cares of housekeeping. Their health 
had been good because hey had not been placed under temptation; 
but in the hotel they had a larger variety to select from, and they 
chose the foods that are most palatable and hurtful. La grippe seized 
every one of them one January, and a daughter passed away with 
pneumonia that followed. The following December they all had 
another attack of la grippe and a son was buried a few months 
after, having never recovered from the attack. 

The doctor called their attention to their diet; but they simply 
said that they would eat what they liked. It was hot rolls, flannel 
cakes, rich food, pastry, etc., and the family kept on defying the 
laws of nature until but three remained, and these awoke to the 
facts in time to stop the practice of eating what they liked. The 
three had never been free from la grippe for the years they had 
been in the hotel; but since then they have given heed to the de¬ 
mands of nature and are now in what seems to be perfect health; 
and they say that the food tastes better than the rich stuff, and they 
enjoy it more. For the hot rolls there are other foods that are 
wholesome and yet pleasing, and for the flannel cakes there are 
other things that yield the same pleasure without any of the pain. 
One of them has written to us in the following words: “ I recall 
how bitterly and disdainfully I rejected the suggestions of Ral- 
stonites who tried to show me the way to perfect health through the 
paths of sound judgment, and every day I see myself and hear 
myself in others. It was this morning that I saw a young ladv 
eat such a breakfast as I once chose, and her face bore evidences of 
the havoc that line of food was making in her system. Then, after 
the graveyard meal was over, she went to her room and doctored for 
constitutional troubles that she tried to make herself believe have 
come to her from other causes. This is the way of the world. In 
one locality there were not five persons in a hundred who were free 
from the grippe last year, and they ascribe it to an epidemic over 
which they have no control. Once I thought the same way. Now 
I know that it can be controlled.” 

The basis of la grippe is the improper food that is taken. No 
one can deny this fact. 


COLDS AND LAGRIPPH. 


87 


The match that sets off the powder is a sudden drop in the 
vitality of the body. These two causes then result in the invasion 
of the germs of la grippe, making the case complete. Let these 
three stages be borne in mind at all times. 

Under the discussion of colds we have fully dealt with the 
food basis. In the latter pages of this treatment we will deal with 
the question of the low vitality. At this stage we will describe 
the malady itself. 

It commences like any attack of catarrh, with perhaps a more 
decided fever, and assumes one of three conditions; it may be 
simple and free from complications; it may be complicated, espe¬ 
cially with the lungs or bronchial passages; and it may so involve 
the digestive system as to make that phase of the malady more 
prominent and serious than the catarrh part. If it occurs with 
any other malady, it exerts a distinct modifying influence. 

In its first or simple form, the patient feels cold down the 
back and between the shoulders, which may be followed by chilli¬ 
ness all over or by a decided attack of chills, then a hot flushing 
accompanied by dryness of the skin, pains through the chest, head 
and limbs, with loss of strength. If there has been exposure to 
dampness or cold, the attack may commence at once; otherwise its 
approach is gradual for two or three days. General weariness and 
lack of power to think or work attend these symptoms. In the 
beginning the nostrils are dry and the throat sore as well as dry; 
the chest is tight, while a harsh cough indicates the irritation 
present. This increases in some cases. The nostrils soon dis¬ 
charge a very copious flow of mucous, which thickens until it is 
quite opaque, and involves the membrane until it fills the throat. 

Genuine la grippe always has three sysptoms that never fail: 
first, alternating chill and heat, though not the same as ague; sec¬ 
ond, a catarrhal discharge; third, a severe pain in the head, which 
may attack the top, or the forehead, or the eye-brows, or eye-balls; 
sometimes this pain is general. Loss of strength may be con¬ 
sidered an almost universal symptom, in addition to the others. 
The lassitude is so great that it is almost impossible to give atten¬ 
tion to any of the duties of life. At the same time the breathing 
almost ceases; while, under the force of the fever, the attempt to 
get air results in quick, short respirations. 

Many explanations of the origin of la grippe have been made; 
but the more positive the assertion the less reliability may be placed 


88 SPECIAL TRBATMSNt NUMBER THRBB. 


upon it. The malady may in a few hours cover a wide area of 
land, making it impossible to arise from personal contact; while 
it is also true that it may arise from the latter cause also. The 
claim that it is due to certain germ-life is probably true; but the 
germ has not been identified, as in consumption, typhoid, and 
almost all other maladies; although the proof is inferential. Some 
investigators believe that there is a fine atmospheric bacterium that 
defies the microscope and that is caught out of space as the earth 
goes by. 

But the fact is that there is always a kind of germ for every new 
condition of the body. If some inventor should produce a new 
bread-and-cake-raiser, say, for instance, something that may be 
called rizum, and this should be as bad for the glands and mem¬ 
branes of the body as the baking powder now in use, and if a new 
kind of derangement of the stomach and digestive tract should 
result, known possibly as bakingpowderitis, then a germ of disease 
not now recognized would be ready to devour and thrive upon the 
toxins that attended the presence of the new condition, and people 
would charge the doctors with inventing the terms and even the 
malady itself, just as now we hear the common remark, “ There 
wasn’t any appendicitis when I was a child; it has all been got up 
by the doctors.” Thus ignorance is coupled with indifference to¬ 
wards the causes that prevail at this day. 

An attack of la grippe is preceded by some direct influence that 
destroys the leucocytes of the blood, as we shall see later on. If 
you will take the trouble to revert back not more than twenty-four 
hours prior to the first symptoms of the disease, you will rarely 
fail to find some direct cause for it. 

Although there are not many hours of warning prior to the 
approach of la grippe, there are always little indications of its 
coming. These are slight feelings of chill along the back, which 
are so faint as not to be recognized unless studied; followed by very 
slight flashes of heat, dullness of the head and eyes, and a languid 
disposition, which shows a distinct loss of strength going on. If 
taken at this stage, the attack may always be fought off. Im¬ 
mediate rest is the first thing. Get in bed at any hour of the day 
or night; have extra clothing thrown over it, and rest. Keep well 
covered at the feet, chest and neck. The vitality is getting low 
and must be immediately built up from two sources, heat and food. 
Nourishment that can be immediately assimilated should be given. 


COLDS AND LA GRIPPE. 


89 


In the height of the fever, an exclusive milk diet is always recom¬ 
mended. At this stage we find that malted milk powder (Horlick’s) 
is very strengthening if taken in one of two ways as the patient 
may prefer; either mixed with boiled milk or with water. Take 
a heaping tablespoonful of the powder, put it in a cup, pour over 
it just enough warm water to assist in making a paste of it free 
from all lumps; add a cupful of boiling water or boiling milk, the 
latter being preferred; drop in a very tiny pinch of salt if the 
milk is used; then strain through a rather coarse sieve, and serve 
in a large glass. This should be given once an hour during the 
waking hours. 

Do not fail to try this. 

Belief is almost immediate unless the delay has been pro¬ 
longed. Late hours at night almost invariably bring on la grippe 
in cold or damp weather; although carelessness in clothing, neglect 
to change when the temperature drops, low diet, omission of a 
meal, indigestible food and any excess or loss of vitality are 
fruitful causes of the condition that invites this disease. Yet if 
taken in hand at once a serious attack is always preventable; and 
the same is true if all the foregoing directions are followed in the 
early stages of the disease. It is likewise necessary to follow the 
same treatment if the illness is to be kept in as mild a condition 
as possible. But it must be borne in mind that, when la grippe 
is well started, it must run its course of four or more days, like 
any cold. 

It becomes dangerous when one attack follows another; or any 
spell cannot be thrown off within a reasonable time; for this then 
indicates what is called a “ catarrhal body.” The attack in time 
will change to some other and far more serious malady, the dreaded 
pneumonia being most likely to follow, and death is generally the 
goal. No person can safely meet la grippe if the body is catarrhal. 
All forms of influenza are catarrhal, and la grippe in its worst 
phase is particularly so. The body is simply saturated with dead 
and corrupt animal soil that floods every membrane seeking to 
escape, as all the natural channels are closed against it. Not only 
in the nose, but in the throat, the air passages, the lung-membranes, 
the stomach and the digestive tract, is catarrh abundant in the 
serious forms of la grippe; and physicians well know that when the 
organs of digestion are involved the results are complicated, as the 
very life of the body is then under attack. 


90 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 


When la grippe brings on catarrh of the stomach and the dis¬ 
charge of mucous prevents digestion, the usual treatment is to give 
an emetic to throw off the poisonous matter; but as the body must 
first be loaded with such pollution before la grippe will secure a 
hold on the membranes, the only hope of a permanent release is 
through a course of treatment that will reach the scources of the 
trouble. There are mucous membranes in all parts of the- upper 
half of the body. These membranes are porous linings which serve 
to transmit mucous from the blood to the surface of the membrane, 
also to absorb in turn certain fluids, and to preserve the functions 
of adjacent organs or parts. This mucous is largely a lubricant, 
and furnishes an oily smoothness which is necessary to health. All 
the colds, drafts, dampness and exposure possible could not origi¬ 
nate la grippe in a person whose flesh was not loaded with dead 
soil. By this is meant a collection of fine, microscopic material 
that has come from dead tissue, or that has been left by the blood 
in its course. To understand this it is necessary to remember that 
the body consists of large and small channels through which the 
blood flows; and that the tiny vessels travel through every bit of 
flesh in such small passages as to really make the flesh itself a 
mass of blood-vessels. On this same principle the whole body is 
built. The stomach is surrounded by a porous membrane that 
draws a total of twenty pounds of water daily from the blood by 
repetition to macerate the food to be digested, and that also in turn 
absorbs the nutriment and sends it into the blood for circulation. 

Wherever the abundant flow of deat or dead animal matter is 
found, whether in the stomach, the lungs, or elsewhere, there will 
be irritation and interference with the normal functional duties. 
The disease is seated all through the body, but is active in some one 
part. hTo matter how it appears, the first duty is to go at once to 
bed and stay there, even following the caution of a very success¬ 
ful expert in this malady, “ Get to bed as soon as you can and 
stay there until the fever abates, and then stay there for forty- 
eight hours after the fever has disappeared;” which means to stay 
in bed for two full days after you are well. All this is in line with 
our own view of the matter. We quote from another successful 
practitioner in this malady: “ My patients have escaped all compli¬ 
cations and all subsequent dangers when they have adopted the fol¬ 
lowing measures: As soon as the first symptoms appear undress at 
once and get to bed, if at home. If at work or away, stop every- 


COLDS AND LA GRIPPE. 


91 


thing, get home, go to bed, get warm, keep warm, take plain but 
strengthening diet, and rest.” In addition to this excellent ad¬ 
vice is that which is concurred in by all physicians; do not think 
to fight off the attack by paying no attention to it; for the mor¬ 
tality that follows la grippe is due to this one thing. A common 
cold may be ignored, perhaps, but la grippe cannot be so dealt 
with. Better give it full attention at once. Again we quote from 
a doctor who has reason to understand the nature of this disease: 
“ When people will come to regard la grippe as a serious malady, 
and to look to their immediate welfare without a moment’s loss of 
time, then they may be secure against the mortality that certainly 
follows in its wake.” 

What is this mortality? For about ten years now there has 
been an unceasing prevalence of the disease. Facts are recorded. 
Statistics are at hand for everybody to read. The last epidemic 
commenced in 1847 and continued through the year 1848. After 
that there was no well-marked widespread prevalence of the dis¬ 
ease, and it was forgotten, until 1889-90-91-92 and nearly every 
year since. Reports show that December, 1890, and the same 
month in 1899 were fruitful in the ravages of the epidemic. It is 
supposed that from two-thirds to nine-tenths of the whole popula¬ 
tion in some localities have been touched. A clergyman in a city 
made a canvass among his people and found that all but eleven 
had been attacked, in a total of 426. A grocer very aptly remarked 
that either the patients all came to his store or else everybody had 
the grippe. The fact is that a large majority who have common 
colds class themselves with those who have genuine la grippe; but 
yet the latter have been quite a numerous part of the whole. 

The deaths that occur from la grippe are few; hut when the epi¬ 
demic is raging, and after every such appearance, the mortality 
from other diseases increases to about three times, or three hun¬ 
dred deaths occur where one hundred should to maintain a nor¬ 
mal average. In London, for instance, where the rate is usually 
about 20, it rose to 32 in 1890; and in Sheffield, where it is about 
22, it rose to 70 in 1891 for the week ending May 2; while in Paris 
the death rate was about trebled. La grippe leads very often 
to fatal pneumonia, and the records will show the latter as the 
cause, not the former; and when you hear the remark that la 
grippe is seldom fatal, you must remember its danger is not in 
itself but in its train of evils, 


92 special, treatment number three. 


FAGS IN THE BLOOD 

AND THEIR RELATION TO LA GRIPPE AND COLDS. 

We have already stated that la grippe is preceded by a sudden 
drop in the vitality of the body, and that the immediate cause can 
be recalled if the mind is thrown back upon it shortly after the 
attack. 

An examination of the blood shows a normal supply of leucocy¬ 
tes, or white corpuscles; the specific variety being known as phago¬ 
cytes, and we call them fagocytes by the use of phonic spelling; 
and this is reduced to the coined word fags. 

The following description is for those students of human life 
who are willing to do a little thinking of a slightly technical 
nature: 

The body is built from the blood; the blood is a fluid called 
plasma in which red and white corpuscles float. The white cor¬ 
puscles are of various kinds, and each kind has some special duty-to 
perform. One class of these white corpuscles is known as fags. 

The red discs (or red corpuscles) are the workers. They are 
made red by the oxygen in fresh air, and by the light of the sun. If 
they are not plentiful in the blood, the body is pale and the com¬ 
plexion yellow and bad. They are made of protoplasm, and in¬ 
crease in the same way as the white discs, but are quite different in 
their nature, and are surcharged with oxygen, which gives them 
wonderful activity. They keep the blood always changing. They 
urge and hurry the white discs into all parts of the body, and 
use them to build up each part as it is wasted by use. Thus the 
red discs are called workers and builders. 

The fags are protoplasm, and are the direct product of the best 
plasmic food. It is supposed that, after they devour devs and 
deat, they become useful protoplasm for building the body. If 
this claim be true, it ought also to be true that flesh made of 
fags (scavengers) is not so good as that made of the pure plasm. 
No one knows what the fact is in this respect. It is, however, 
well known that fags are made from the purest plasm or plasmic 
food. This can be discovered by taking a drop of blood from the 
body after a meal of plasmic food, or after taking raw eggs, or 
hot milk, or new milk, or malted milk, or old bread (long-bake 
from yeast), or beef-juice, or scraped beef, or cod liver oil, or 
whole wheat (uncooked) digested in the mouth, or any other 
wholesome food. 


COLDS AND LAGRIPPE. 


93 


Plasma is the fluid of the blood in which the red and the white 
corpuscles float and move about in their work of building and 
caring for the body; but plasm is the name we give to pure food 
from which the best blood can be made. It is but one step from 
plasm to plasma. 

Devs are pathogenic bacteria, by which is meant that they are 
the germs that cause disease, such as la grippe and others. It is 
easier to say devs than it is to say pathogenic bacteria. If you say 
bacteria, the scientist will not know whether you refer to those 
that are good or those that are bad; the former are necessary for 
the growth and sustenance of the body, and the latter are their 
enemies. One set is always trying to eat up the other set, and it is 
all a question of which set does the eating. 

The germs of la grippe are always present in the body, but are 
taken care of by the angs, or good bacteria; and it is not until the 
latter fail to do their work that la grippe sends its toxins all 
through the blood, making the head swim and the membranes 
sore from their semi-fatal onslaught. 

In the battle of health the fags, or the special fighting white 
corpuscles, known as leucocytes, are the army of protection. 

As a rule, when the blood is healthy, the total of the white 
discs is one for every 300 red discs. Figure 1 shows four fags 
and three white discs, making a total of seven white corpuscles 
altogether; and there should be about 2100 of the red ones. In 
starvation, the white discs are very scarce. After plasmic food 
is eaten, they are numerous, and the fags show up. Four fags 
in the presence of 2100 red discs is a large proportion, although 
it does not seem so; yet, when you recall the fact that, at every 
breath, 20,000,000 (twenty million) red discs die, and as many 
more are bom to take their place in your body, you can see that 
they must be very abundant. There are millions of them in a 
drop of blood not so big as the head of a pin. 

Now if you will look at Figure 2, you will see the blood from 
the same person, taken after a meal of deat, or ordinary food, 
badly selected and improperly cooked. 

If you have a good microscope you can make the test yourself. 
A needle, pricking the little finger at the tip, three hours after a 
meal, will get a fair sample of the blood, for the latter flows 
readily to the finger tips. Place a tiny drop between two pieces 
of thin glass, and you can easily see what is going on. 


94 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE- 


The better way of experimenting is to get a drop of blood from 
some person who is not in good health; and then, after ten days 
of eating plasmic food, take another drop of blood from the 



same person, and note the remarkable difference. The first drop, 
before eating plasmic food, will resemble Figure 6. There will 
be fewer red discs, fewer white ones, no fags, and a big lot of 
devs, deat and dead plasma. This is very likely your present con¬ 
dition. Toxins fill the plasma. You will have colds, catarrhs, in¬ 
fluenza, and no one knows what else. 



Fags sometimes destroy devs without digesting them. Sometimes 
they take them into their own cells, kill them and let them re¬ 
main as dead matter. Their disease-producing tendency is thus 



































COLDS AND LAGRIPPE. 


95 


destroyed, but the dead devs set up deat in the blood that is sure 
to appear in the form of catarrh, and, as all plasma circulates 
through all parts of the body again and again every hour, this 
catarrh may appear at the nose, throat, lungs, stomach, intestines, 
or many other places. 

The fags do their best work in a temperature of seventy-one 
degrees, and in a dry climate; in case there is much deat or disease 
in the system. They become sluggish in a damp locality, or when 
the blood is chilled suddenly. They destroy millions of enemies 
every hour; and, in case they are unable to work, the deat and its 
toxins increase very rapidly. Thus it is seen that colds, catarrhs and 
influenza may follow exposure to dampness or a chilling tempera¬ 
ture. 

There are various kinds of fags. Prof. Metschnikoff, the well 
known scientist, is credited with the best work of investigation 
among them; but Dr. George M. Sternberg, former Surgeon Gen¬ 
eral U. S. Army, in a recent book says: “ Metschnikoff divides the 
so-called phagocytes into two groups: Fixed phagocytes and free 
phagocytes.” And again: “ This explanation is now commonly 

spoken of as the ‘ Metschnikoff theory/ although, as a matter 
of fact, it was clearly stated by the writer (Sternberg) several 
years (1881) before MetschnikofPs first paper (1884) was pub¬ 
lished.”—And again: “ The colorless blood-corpuscles which he 
denominates phagocytes (fags) accumulate at the point of inva¬ 
sion and pick up the bacteria (devs), as they are now known to 
pick up inorganic particles.” 

Dr. Sidney Martin, a high authority, says that different varie¬ 
ties of phagocytes (fags) eat or “take in” different varieties of 
disease germs (devs). Thus “neutrophile” fag eats the germs 
of erysipelas and gonorrhoea; the mononuclear eats the germs of 
leprosy, etc., etc. 

Among the most valuable of our recent experiments are those 
from which the following results are reached in reference to la 
grippe. 

1. Every attack of la grippe is preceded within twenty-four hours 
by some act or condition that suddenly lowers the vitality. 

2. Prior to the sudden attack of la grippe, the blood will show 
fags at work trying to overcome the conditions that threaten the 
danger. But just after the attack, which is always distinct in its 
symptoms, the blood will show a sudden decrease of the fags. 


96 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THREE. 


3. This sudden decrease of the fags is due to some act or con¬ 
dition that takes away much of the vitality in a short time; and 
the following confessions of carelessness and exposure are taken 
from all sorts of letters on the subject, written by members who 
have been able to look back twenty-four hours prior to the attack 
of la grippe: 

“ I sat up late the night before in a damp room.”—“ I went 
without my dinner, and ate two bananas for supper.”—“ I stood 
at the door saying good-bye to a friend, and the cold air chilled me. 
I was there only a minute.”—“ I opened the bedroom window and 
looked out to see what the weather was.”—“ I ate fried oysters, 
and was in distress for hours afterward.”—“ I was up talking with 
a friend until after midnight.”—“ Late hours .”—“ Irregularity 
in eating.”—“ I went out in the rain.”—“ I was twenty-four hours 
too late in discovering that I needed heavier clothing.”—“ A friend 
took me out driving and stopped to talk with another friend, keep¬ 
ing me sitting in the carriage for five minutes in a chilling air.” 

Excesses in marriage, and in many other ways, will lead to the 
attack of la grippe. But if you are free from the poisonous accu¬ 
mulation in the body it is not easy to catch cold or la grippe. 

It is not possible for people to be on the crest of perfect care 
all the time, and the better course is to get all deat and toxins out 
of the system so that a reasonable amount of freedom may be had. 

Yet it is true that without the particular exposure or indiscre¬ 
tion it would not be possible for la grippe to secure its start in 
acute form, and it is good judgment to avoid the danger as long 
as you have the slightest tendency towards a cold, or there are the 
warning neuralgic pains, or dull headaches, for these pave the way 
to the prostration. 

When once the collapse comes it must be fought by absolute rest, 
the freeing of the system as in the treatment of colds, and the 
absence of solid food for a few days. 

Large numbers of fags should be developed by the use of plasmic 
food, which is secured by high regime in the book of Inside Mem¬ 
bership. They should not be killed off by sudden exposures of an 
extreme nature. To hold them as friendly tenants of the body it 
is necessary to treat them well. Late hours, damp rooms, insuffi¬ 
cient clothing, poor food, drafts, excesses, careless habits and other 
forms of neglect are like clubs that an ungrateful progeny wield on 
the head of a loving mother, slaying without remorse. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 4 


■* @ateippf?i> 


We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 


This Treatment is private. It is rented to the Inside Member 
to whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The member has no right to loan this mono¬ 
graph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or to come 
into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the same. 
This rule does not forbid the use of the Treatment by the member in 
behalf of any child or aged person who is actually in the member’s 
household; but all others must become Inside Members of the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help of this Treat¬ 
ment. To become such members will not cost anything, as may be 
seen by consulting the final pages of the book of Inside Member¬ 
ship, if the steps are taken as there directed. 

7 


(97) 




THE GREAT CATARRH TREATMENT. 


CATARRH OF THE NOSE, THROAT AND BRONCHIAL PASSAGES; KNOWN 
AS COMMON CATARRH. 

Catarrh, or flow of mucus, is a term generally applied by physi¬ 
cians to any inflammation or congestion of a membrane, of which 
there are many; and thus we hear of catarrh of the bladder, of 
the stomach, lungs, throat, nose, etc. But among laymen the 
word applies only> to mucus discharges from the upper air pas¬ 
sages. There are three stages of the malady. The first is that 
in which the trouble has a beginning; the second is a condition 
between a beginning and a permanent state; and the third is 
chronic catarrh. 

It is almost useless to cite the causes that lead to the fixing of 
this serious condition upon human beings; but it is well to state 
that there are three things that are necessary to lead up to it. The 
vitality must be low in some forms of catarrh, but this is not true in 
other forms of the disease. A strong vitality repels the advance of 
inflammation when the system is not too much clogged with dead 
food or animal soil. Yet the healthiest of men and women, those 
who work out of doors and have all the pure air and exercise they 
need, seem to be afflicted with this distemper as often and as se¬ 
verely as those of sedentary habits. This clogging prepares the 
way for temporary loss of vitality, and really induces it. Then 
there must be a chilling of the system and exposure to low tem¬ 
perature and dampness, to start the trouble. Yet again we find 
that persons whose systems are clogged will become so sensitive 
to every little draft that the more care they take the more likely 
they are to catch cold. All these things indicate the same general 
cause behind the immediate influences that bring on the malady. 

Nearly every person is afflicted more or less with this disorder. 
It cannot originate of itself. There is a fault somewhere. We do 
not believe that medicines can cure it; nor have we ever known of 
(98) 



CATARRHS. 


99 


permanent relief coming from any source except that which an 
all-wise Nature has afforded. Of the thousands of attempts made 
in the last few years to cure catarrh by the aid of washes, douches, 
sprays and treatment, we do not believe one has been successful. 
On the other hand, if any person is honestly desirous of testing 
the great value and never-failing power of the simplest method in 
Nature, let the Ealston cure of this most common trouble be tried. 
There is no expense and no apparatus in this or any other Ealston 
treatment; yet we have had no failure in the thousands of cases 
among Ealstonites where the Natural method has been applied. 

It is not in the nature of the disease itself to be cured by local 
washes or by blood medicines. Eegular physicians are generally 
helpless in cases of catarrh, not being able to cure themselves, 
though being often troubled with the disease. As a result the 
practice turns to specialists who reap a large income without effect¬ 
ing a single cure. Next comes the patent medicine advertisement, 
and the patient ruins his stomach or his blood by taking drugs 
internally, or applying local washes. 

Nearly everybody has catarrh. It ranges from a slight run¬ 
ning cold in the head to a stoppage of the nasal chamber, and at¬ 
tendant discharges in the throat. It should be cured at once, no 
matter how slight it may seem. Catarrh affects the blood by 
poisoning and reducing it, as well as absorbing the elements that 
expel such diseases as rheumatism and neuralgia. It becomes 
offensive in odor to others, although the patient is rarely ever aware 
of it. The nasal cavity is the resonant chamber of the voice, and 
when affected by catarrh the voice is nasal and of a dead timbre 
destroying the beautiful effects of good singing, reading and 
speaking. 

There are mucus membranes in all parts of the upper half of 
the body. These membranes are porous linings which serve to 
transmit mucous from the blood to the surface of the membrane, 
also to absorb in turn certain fluids, and to preserve the functions 
of adjacent organs or parts. This mucus is largely a lubricant, 
and furnishes an oily smoothness which is necessary to the carriage 
and action of life in the body. We all know how disagreeable a 
dry throat is. The membrane is normal when it is neither too dry 
nor too moist. 

The incurable cases are not properly catarrhal. When the 
membrane’s structure has been destroyed by the poison of the dis- 


LofC. 


100 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOUR. 

ease, or weakened to such an extent that its character has changed, 
it can no more be restored than a dead leaf can be made to become 
green. So when the bone has rotted away by the filth of the 
mucous, it can never be restored, for such things would be creations 
rather than cures. A lost tooth or an amputated leg is gone for¬ 
ever. Few cases are so desperate, however; and every truly ca- 
tarrahal malady is certainly curable. The odor is often a clue to 
the rotten condition; but the usually offensive smell attending 
catarrh is not indicative of a hopeless case. In that middle state of 
the membrane when it is neither too dry nor too moist, the mucous 
is free from odor; but as it increases in flow during inflammation 
or congestion it takes on a peculiar color and is slightly offensive; 
and, as it thickens and becomes troublesome in quantity, it grows 
in its odor until it is almost unendurable. There are ladies of 
otherwise attractive qualities who cannot remain ten minutes in a 
room without tainting the air; and we are glad to state that many 
such cases have been cured. 

Let us get to the seat of the trouble, and seek its remedy. In 
the first place, the system is clogged; and there is no case of catarrh 
where this is not true. All the colds, drafts, dampness and ex¬ 
posure possible could not originate catarrh in a person whose flesh 
was not loaded with dead soil. By this is meant a collection of 
fine, microscopic material that has come from dead tissue, or that 
has been left by the blood in its course. To understand this it is 
necessary to remember that the body consists of large and small 
channels through which the blood flows, and that the tiny vessels 
travel through every bit of flesh in such small passages as to really 
make the flesh itself a mass of blood-vessels. On this same prin¬ 
ciple the whole body is built. 

The blood is everywhere. Its little disks are dying at the rate 
of millions a second. The dead disks are left where they die, in 
and through the body, in all of its parts, in the skin, under the 
skin, in the flesh, among the nerves, even in the bones, and it is 
this mass of countless millions of dead tissue cells, to vary the 
terms, that clog the whole system. The kidneys depend upon a 
porous membrane, an epithelium so called; and woe to the health 
and even the life when these dead cells begin to clog that. The 
stomach is surrounded by a porous membrane that draws a total 
of twenty pounds of water daily from the blood by repetition to 
macerate the food to be digested, and that also in turn absorbs the 


CATARRHS. 


101 


nutriment and sends it into the blood for circulation. Let the 
system be clogged and the membrane of the stomach will not act 
normally; the gastric juices will not flow in purity to the food, and 
the organ is then dyspeptic; the nutriment will not pass into the 
blood and the health is affected. A clogged system has a poor 
appetite, unless a tremendous tax is created by hard physical or 
mental exertion; and even then it is sometimes a struggle to eat. 

The membrane that lines the nose, throat and mouth serves 
the purpose of protection, salivation, of absorption and of sense- 
acuteness both of taste and smell. When the general body is 
clogged with dead cells this accumulation very naturally seeks exit 
by the readiest method, which is through the membranes; hence the 
mucus is overloaded. Being poisonous like putrid meat, the dead 
soil irritates the delicate structure of the membrane; and it is not 
surprising that it becomes inflamed, then congested. The cold is 
really invited by this irritated condition; and it is not true that 
the cold or the dampness is the first cause. There are persons who, 
of ice-cold countries, as a rule are free from it, for it is almost im¬ 
possible to clog their bodies because so great a demand is made 
upon all the fuel within. 

The natural prevention of catarrh is its natural cure. First 
avoid putting into the system the classes of food that are not likely 
to produce life; as nearly ninety per cent, of all that is eaten is use¬ 
less as nutriment, but serves to clog the flesh. We will deal 
thoroughly with this question presently. Then, second, dispose of 
the dead soil by the natural channels and not by mucus mem¬ 
branes. The latter are not intended for excretions, but for the 
interchange of the purest materials of the body; nor should dead 
animal soil ever be allowed to pass them; yet the examination of 
catarrhal discharges shows that they are loaded with such filth. 

The condition is most unhealthful. 

The proper channels of excretion are the alimentary canal, 
which is too often inactive; the skin, which is almost always in¬ 
active; and the lungs, which are rarely ever used to a fourth per 
cent, of their capacity. There are no other intended means of throw¬ 
ing off the dead material excepting the kidneys. Of these the ali¬ 
mentary canal, or intestines, should be used only for disposing of 
the refuse from the stomach. Nature does not purpose that dead ma¬ 
terial from the blood and flesh should go off that way; hence too 
much meat, which furnishes more animal soil than anything else, 


102 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOUR. 


is sure to poison the organs below the stomach, such as the liver 
and the kidneys, and a meat diet is one of the quickest causes of 
Bright’s disease. 

Little by little we have come to the two means of throwing 
off the dead animal matter of the body; namely, the activity of the 
skin and of the lungs. These functions are so important that the 
neglect of either one of them means disease; and it is very difficult 
to find a person who is well. The old doctors acquired their guess¬ 
work knowledge by experiment, instinct, intuition and tradition. 
When a person took cold the first remedy was to open the pores, to 
start profuse perspiration, to get to “ sweating,” to soak the feet, 
and moisten the whole body. In this same principle the Turkish 
bath is cleansing, and is valuable where it does not take away too 
much of needed material and vitality. Few persons can stand such 
losses. The old idea still prevails everywhere. Open the pores, 
soak the feet, start the perspiration, move the bowels, and do every¬ 
thing toward one end; what? Why, to get something out of the 
system that does not belong there. In the days of blood-letting 
the same idea was at the foundation, that of emptying some of the 
impurities out of the body by bleeding; and it was right in prin¬ 
ciple but wrong in method. 

The whole history of the medical practice is saturated with 
this one prevailing purpose, to throw off the clogging matter of the 
body. We have consulted the leading physicians in various parts 
of America on the question of what is best to do when an attack of 
catarrh is coming on, and they all agree that the skin must at 
once be made active in order to assist nature in throwing off the 
matter that has clogged the system, made catarrh possible, and is 
trying to escape through the membranes instead of the proper ways. 
They admit that the .disease is due to such dead matter, and that 
there is but one method of getting rid of it; but they wisely say, 
lower the diet in order to withdraw all the supply of such material 
possible until the system is free again. This is like bleeding in 
the sense that the life of the body is decreased in order to get rid 
of part of itself. In the same way a man who had ten carpets 
loaded with moths would get rid of about half of the moths by 
destroying five carpets. 

All we have said thus far is of the greatest importance and 
must be thoroughly understood if catarrh is to be cured. No idea 
could be so erroneous and no practice so faulty as the attempt to 


CATARRHS. 


103 


drive catarrh out of the system by local treatment. The mem¬ 
branes should not be used for outlets to the poisons that clog the 
body; and when such poisons have inflamed and congested the deli¬ 
cate structure (lace-like in its arrangement of channels) of the 
membrane, what good can be accomplished by the treatment of the 
structure unless the further flow of the poison is checked? Ah 
persons in this age of enlightenment take medicines on the same 
plan that the old woman cleaned her clothes. She placed them 
in a pool of water, into which ran a stream of iron rust from a heap 
of old junk that lay at the top of a hill; the rust stained the white 
clothes; she got recipes, advice, and special treatments for remov¬ 
ing the stains; one person had an excellent remedy, another was 
sure he could remove them, and an advertisement in the paper 
claimed to be an absolute cure; she used washes, scrapers, chemicals 
and everything without success; and the clothes had often to be 
replaced by new ones; until one day a man of common sense called 
the old woman’s attention to the cause of the trouble. Then she 
removed the heap of junk, the cause ceased, and she had no more 
trouble. What doctor, what sufferer, ever thinks of treating any¬ 
thing but the results? What treatment ever goes to the heap of 
old junk and removes it?” 

We say that as long as dead animal soil is allowed to collect 
in the system it will be impossible to check the catarrh; and so long 
will it be foolish, aimless and injurious to deal with the mem¬ 
brane by washes. In the first place, you must understand a number 
of facts, or you cannot go intelligently at work to effect a cure. 
Here are the facts: 

1. Nearly all, if not all, persons are afflicted with this malady. 

2. Catarrh is always an accumulation of dead matter in the 
body. 

3. Dead matter is the result of life; for every act, every im¬ 
pulse, every thought is the force expended by the death of count¬ 
less millions of life cells. Their death is our life act. 

4. As matter must die in millions of cells and especially in 
millions of blood-discs every minute, nature provides ways for their 
escape, and they are chiefly through the skin and lungs. 

5. When the skin is normally active, it exudes poisonous gases, 
poisonous liquids and poisonous solids in enormous amounts, com¬ 
paratively speaking. The microscope quickly proves that the solid 
matter is dead animal soil. 


104 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOUR. 


6. The skin, in its most disabled state, must exude some poisons. 

If it should totally fail for a half hour, death would follow. 

7. The lungs always exude poisonous gases, fluids and solids. 
We can hardly conceive of solids coming from the skin and lungs; 
but they are of microscopic size, and are easily detected. 

8. The skin is never normally active in more than one person 
in a thousand; and that person never has catarrh of any kind. 

9. The lungs are never half active even in the best constitu¬ 
tions. 

10. The normal operation of the skin and lungs would make 
catarrh impossible, even with an abuse of the diet. This fact has 
been proved over and over again, and is always found to be true 
under all circumstances. We will say, however, that it is very 
difficult to establish the normal operation of the skin and lungs 
when a grossly improper diet is always clogging the system. 

11. When material is dying in the body faster than it is being 
thrown off there is always going on a dangerous accumulation. 
This first checks the appetite if it can; but severe labor taxes the 
strength, and food is demanded. Here we find the reason why so 
many laborers have catarrh; for a wrong diet always furnishes such 
accumulation; and the tea, coffee, beer, cheap meats, bad flour, and 
indigestible foods of the working classes provide more dead soil 
than any ordinary condition of health can throw off. 

12. When there is a clogging of the system the first effort to 
throw it off is through the skin; the second is through the lungs; 
the third is back again into the blood through the kidneys; and, 
when all these prove insufficient, there is but one chance left and 
that is through the membranes with the mucus; and this is 
catarrh. 

13. As the membranes are intended by nature for the pas¬ 
sage to and fro of pure, life-giving mucus and for nothing filthy, 
it is always a dangerous condition when dead animal soil seeks to’ 
escape through them. 

1 4 . The mixing of such poisons with the pure mucus changes 
the character of the latter, and it cannot perform its duties prop¬ 
erly; therefore other parts suffer. 

15. An examination of mucus in a condition of health shows 
that no poisons are present. 

16. An examination of mucus when catarrhal shows the pres¬ 
ence of the very same poisons, liquids and solids, that should come 


CATARRHS. 


105 


out of the skin and lungs; and this proves conclusively that catarrh 
is merely the attempt of the clogging matter to get out through 
the membranes. 

There are three plans of treatment, and they must all work to¬ 
gether. They are as follows: 

* The basis of the cause must be reversed. 

* The accumulated deat must be got out and no more allowed 
in its place. 

* The membrane that is afflicted must be healed and made sound 
again. 

The basis of the cause is the food that is eaten. To stop that, 
it is necessary to make use of plasmic food for a few weeks; and 
if a permanent cure is desired, care should be taken to keep the 
diet plasmic as long as there is the least danger of a return to the 
ailment. 

Plasma is the name of the fluid of the blood. In it the corpus¬ 
cles that build the body swim and grow. They get their food from 
the fluid plasma, and that must therefore contain the nutrition 
that the discs or corpuscles need. 

When that food is perfect, it contains nothing but what the discs 
require, and that is perfect plasma. The* nearer one gets to the 
condition of perfect plasma the closer will be the. relations of 
health. 

The good nutriment that the alimentary canal gives to the blood 
is called plasm, because it makes plasma. The food that yields 
plasm is called plasmic food. It is this kind of food that is neces¬ 
sary to displace and throw out of use the deat which leads to the 
catarrhal diseases of every part of the body. 

The plasma in the blood is the product of the food that is di¬ 
gested. It contains many things that ought not to be allowed 
to get in it; and anything that will not make plasm (protoplasm) 
ought never to be taken into the system. Water contains oxygen 
and hydrogen, two of the elements of plasm. Air contains oxy¬ 
gen and nitrogen, two of the elements of plasm. Carbon is the 
only other food that is really needed in the primary list; but, as 
the human body must have lime for bones, phosphorus for brain, 
nerves and marrow, as well as iron, fluorine, silicon, magnesium, 
potassium, chlorine, sodium and sulphur; and as nature does 
not favor the use of any one element by itself, it is necessary to 
eat foods that contain all fourteen elements in proper proportion. 


106 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOUR. 


There are many foods in the world that contain these elements, 
and they are therefore called plasmic, as they furnish the blood 
with its protoplasm. These foods are very abundant, and are 
common to all humanity. They are created under the law of 
special design. If a person were to eat them, and exclude all deat- 
foods, the result would be perfect health provided some little at¬ 
tention were paid to the other Cardinal Points. 

When any food is eaten, no matter how good or bad it is, 
some of it is digested. Digestion is a process that begins with 
the mouth, goes on in the stomach, is continued below the stomach, 
and does not cease until the refuse leaves the body. It is for this 
reason that injections in the colon are given to provide food in 
extreme cases, and lives have been saved by that kind of feeding. 

The system takes up a part of all food that is digested. The 
part taken up enters the blood, and joins the plasma or fluid por¬ 
tion only. Remember this. 

The plasma, therefore, contains all the possibilities of health 
and disease. It is loaded with good and bad. It may hold the 
deat and toxins of colds, catarrhs, diphtheria, small-pox, consump¬ 
tion, headaches, skin eruptions, uric acid, gout, dropsy, rheu¬ 
matism, and other maladies; and it is a settled scientific fact that 
disease of every hind begins in the plasma of the blood. 

In order to effect a permanent cure of catarrh the food must be 
plasmic, as we have stated. Now, what is plasmic food ? 

It is that kind which is closest to the pure nutrition of the blood. 
It is the kind of food that is fallen back on in the attempt to cure 
every known disease in its severest crisis. The nearest of all food 
to the blood is milk, for it is one of the steps in the making of 
blood in every human being, male and female. 

Next to milk is the white of an egg. 

Next comes the whole egg. 

Then we have the juice of beef, and this may be secured either in 
broths, or in scraped steak, or in the extracted fluid. 

The best way to obtain beef juice is to broil a piece of beef¬ 
steak; the thicker the cut, the better. The broiling should be 
over a hot fire, so as to coagulate the outside and thus hold in 
the juices. The heat should reach the center, hut not enough 
to change its character. Then pound and mash the meat until 
it is thoroughly shredded; and finish by running it through a 
lemon squeezer. The juice may he salted to suit the taste, and 


CATARRHS. 


107 


peppered if desired, in case it is to be used by adults. Do not 
pepper it for infants. 

This is immensely nutritious, and its plasmic nature reaches 
any other food that may accompany it. If taken alone, let it be 
made warm, or else given ice-cold. It may be given with great 
advantage to infants after nine months old, and during their 
second year. It contains nearly all the good of meat, and none 
of the danger. It is not safe, as a rule, to give meat fiber to 
infants. Sometimes it is done, but in eighty per cent, of cases it 
results in serious harm. The best physicians advise against it. 
Yet all allow the use of beef-juice made in the way described. 

In all cases of indigestion this beef-juice is helpful, and it is 
about all that can be taken. It is coming more and more into 
use by persons of all ages, and especially by adults whose stomachs 
have become weakened by indigestion. 

The plasm that is contained in the beef-juice so prepared acts 
upon other food, and turns that to plasma. Home-made yeast 
bread, or sour-milk bread, after it is forty-eight hours old, makes 
a splendid combination with the beef-juice. The bread is best 
not toasted, but is more palatable toasted. The juice is spread 
over the top of each slice of bread, but it must not be allowed 
to soak in more than one-fourth of an inch. 

Scraped-beef is prepared in the same way, except that the 
broiled beef is scraped with a knife until the juice and tender 
part of the meat are taken off; while the connective-tissue sheaths 
should be thrown away. They are indigestible even in cases of 
perfect health, and cause much disturbance in a weak stomach. 
To infants and invalid-adults they are sources of great danger. 
It is always better to run the scraped-beef through a fine sieve, 
so as to get rid of the fiber which is almost nothing but deat; for 
which reason meat fiber is unwholesome. 

Scraped-beef may be taken in the way described for the extract, 
salted, peppered or not for adults, heated slightly or ice-cold, and 
with or without old bread, toasted or not. It is given to infants 
in their second year, the bread being omitted in some cases. 
It is the very best food for invalids in convalescence; and es¬ 
pecially in cases of gastritis. But meat-fiber is dangerous. 

Scraped-beef is more nutritious than beef-extract or beef-juice; 
and its value can at once be seen. As a plasmic food, it takes rank 
with milk, eggs and other articles; but all serve their special uses. 


108 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOUR. 


The various meat extracts, broths, beef-peptones, and what not, 
now for sale on the market, are not plasmic. Master man com¬ 
pares some of them to urine, owing to the stuff from which they 
are made. The better way is to have good beef in the house and 
let the juice and scraped-meat be made at home. No other meat 
but beef should be used for this purpose. 

An excellent way of securing the plasmic value of meat is by 
the limited mastication of beef. It is broiled or roasted, but the 
whole inside should be red. When beef is not red, it ceases in 
great degree to be plasmic. It is now cut as needed; but the 
piece to be chewed should be as large as the mouth will easily hold. 
Salt it to suit the taste, just before putting it in the mouth, not 
sooner. 

The piece must be chewed until nothing is left but the con¬ 
nective-tissue. This will take a few minutes, but it will develop 
a great quantity of gastric juice and add the value of the saliva 
to that of the stomach, thus doing more good than all the medi¬ 
cines ever invented. Do not swallow any of the meat-fiber. 

There are many efforts constantly being made to arouse the 
flow of gastric juice in the stomach. When that fluid does not 
come to aid the food, the latter ferments or decays and sets up 
disease in many forms. Plasmic food, in most cases, except where 
it is wrongly selected, arouses the flow of the gastric juice; but 
the best medicine for this purpose is saliva mixed with plasmic 
food. The habit of swallowing saliva alone is a bad one, as is 
seen in the use of chewing gum. The saliva is made to act upon 
food, not to be used alone. If swallowed alone when there is 
plasmic food in the stomach, it does some good; but nature in¬ 
tends it to mix in the mouth with plasm and thus furnish the 
most important of all medicines that can enter the stomach. 

Yet in spite of the fact that its equal cannot be found, and that 
it costs nothing, the people and the scientists are hunting up 
something artificial to arouse the gastric juices of the stomach. 
They pay high prices for the artificial, and the sufferers go to 
fifty times the trouble that would be required if they used the 
natural. The doctors argue that the artificial is natural, because 
it contains the same chemical parts; but life in plasm and dead 
plasm are vastly different even if they are chemically alike. 

New bread possesses no plasmic qualities. It is charged with deat 
and toxins. Yeast-made home bread is the least injurious. 


CATARRHS. 


109 


The good bacteria of the air and water are needed by the body. 
They must unite with all food that is to be regarded as highly use¬ 
ful. New bread possesses no bacteria at all. When it has stood 
a day it is beginning to get some. At the end of twenty-four 
hours it is plasmic and exceedingly valuable. The good old cus¬ 
tom of baking once a week was the greatest blessing of the olden 
days. People to-day crave new bread, because their palates are 
vitiated by toxins. In the old days, the loaf that was seven days 
old was relished just as much as the new loaf is to-day. It 
softened by standing. No one should allow bread to get dry. Let 
it be wrapped in towels and kept moist. 

The Germans call this stale bread, but not in the sense that 
it is spoiled. They mean by stale not new. All physicians are 
careful to caution their patients against the use of new bread. 
Lovers of animals and birds know that old bread is a necessity, 
and new bread a poison, in the feeding of certain pets. The 
reason has been supposed to be in the fact that new bread con¬ 
tained the gas that caused it to rise: the carbon dioxid; but this 
gas is not hurtful to such birds or animals in the quantity in 
which it is found in the bread given, as experiments have abun¬ 
dantly proved. The whole secret is this: old bread is plasmic, new 
bread is deat; and nothing but plasmic food is healthful. The 
deat of new bread causes toxins that produce disease. This fact 
can be verified by any person who will follow it carefully through 
a number of cases sufficiently numerous to establish a law. We 
know it to be true. 

The remedy for one of the greatest evils of the age is to bake 
all bread at home, make it of yeast, keep it slowly baking for 
hours, let it be made once a week in batches large enough to 
last seven days, and begin to eat it when it is two days old. Thus 
if put to rise on Tuesday evening, it can bake on Wednesday, 
and be ready for its first use on Friday. If enough be made for 
seven days, it will last until the batch of the next week is ready 
on Friday. The older it gets, provided it does not begin to spoil, 
the better will be its flavor, for one of the duties of good bacteria 
is to impart flavor to food with which it comes in contact; and 
this same duty is performed in the ripening of fruit. Just at the 
last stages of development, when the juice-cells open, the good 
bacteria give a delicate flavor to the grape, a rich flavor to the 
peach, and so on in all the varieties of pear, apple, plum, quince, 


ilO SPECIAL TREATMENT* NtJMBER FOUR. 

cherry and others; but this office is not performed until the fruit 
has softened. The same is true of bread that is moist with a 
few days of age. When once the flavor is recognized, and the 
relish changed to its quality, there will be a decided preference 
for bread a week old. 

As to health,—that is a matter that comes with such lightning 
rapidity, after this plasmic bread has been used, that it can never 
be in doubt. We asked a hundred physicians, every one of whom 
was recognized as highly qualified, what they had to say about 
this proposition. They all agreed to it. One said, “ If that cus¬ 
tom can only be revived, of baking bread once a week, and begin- 
ing to eat it when it is two days old, hundreds of names of dis¬ 
eases will be at once struck off the list; among them gastritis 
and appendicitis.” The other doctors expressed varying views; 
but all agreed that if Ealstonism could revive this custom, it would 
in that one thing alone do the world a service that would revolu¬ 
tionize the present fearful conditions of health. 

Let us work together for this great end. Xet it is but one of 
many great things in Ealstonism. 

There is not a scientist, an investigator, a practitioner, a spec¬ 
ialist, a nurse of exact experience, among the hundreds of thou¬ 
sands who have studied the question of food-values, who differs 
with us. All consent to the truth of our statement. 

Let us review the several stages of bread made from flour: 

1. Uncooked; highly plasmic and of immense importance. 

2. Briefly cooked; very indigestible, and the cause of certain 
toxins and diseases. 

3. Thoroughly cooked; largely digestible. 

4. Toasted; converted into dextrine, and still more digestible. 

5. Thoroughly cooked, and kept for two or more days; plasmic 
and very easily digested. 

6. Thoroughly cooked, kept for two or more days, and slightly 

toasted; plasmic and very easily digested. i 

It must be remembered that cod-liver-oil is a plasmic food that 
does its best work in acting on other food. It should never be 
taken on an empty stomach, nor on a full one. If given sooner 
than one hour after a meal, it disturbs digestion; if delayed much 
beyond the hour, it does not reach the food. It is better for 
most of the food to have left the stomach. The pure oil is much 
more nutritious than the preparations and emulsions; though 


CATARRHS. 


ill 


the latter are easier to take, and are beneficial if taken in the 
manner stated. The pure “ cold-drawn ” oil is to be preferred. 
It is obtained from raw fresh livers of the codfish by heavy pres¬ 
sure, which squeezes out the oil. It is sometimes given in cap¬ 
sules in which case it may be taken about half an hour after a 
meal. Not more than half an ounce should be given at a time, 
and even less is beneficial if there is good food ahead of it. 

One of the best things ever advocated by Ralstonites was the 
use of wheat bran as a drink. There are many ways of preparing 
it, but the following is by far the best. Take four quarts of bran 
for four quarts of water. Let this mixture stand in a cool place 
for two hours, and stir it occasionally. Then strain through a 
cheese-cloth. If the bran is rich in plasmic food, the water will 
be clouded; otherwise the water will be clear, and of no value. 
Squeeze in the juice of one lemon for each quart of the strained 
water, or four lemons for the gallon. When drinking it, put 
cracked ice in a glass and fill with the bran water. The lemons 
may be omitted; but, if lemons are used no sugar should be taken 
with them, for the combination of sweet and sour is hurtful to the 
blood. It is better to avoid sugar in this drink. 

Bran lemonade is very refreshing and a direct stimulus to the 
brain and nervous system. It contains plasmic food, although 
not in abundance, but in great vigor. The bran-plasm and not 
the lemon gives the value y for, the result is the same even if the 
lemon is omitted. So simple and inexpensive an experiment can 
be readily made by every person, and proof will be abundant of 
the remarkable nature of this food-drink. It is plasmic, and can 
be taken at any hour, with or without other food. 

There is no doubt that a small quantity of plasmic food in the 
body will turn much of the deat food into protoplasm, if the per¬ 
son is out in the fresh air and light most of the time, and is under 
the influences of the other points of health as stated in other parts 
of this book. The faster the blood can make protoplasm, the less 
chance there is for the deat to generate poisons; for the former 
reduces the latter. It is for this reason that many physicians 
to-day prescribe plasmic food whenever their patients catch cold. 

The foregoing diet is not always pleasant, nor is the use of 
medicines. As soon as the catarrhal conditions are lessened, then 
the proper diet is that of high regime in the book of Inside Mem¬ 
bership. 


112 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOUR. 


The first step has now been taken; the basis cause of catarrh 
has been removed when this treatment has been faithfully observed. 

The next step is that of cleaning out the collected deat; and that 
is fully provided for in the special treatment given as the first, 
and called the Anti-Death Treatment. 

The third and last step in the cure of catarrh is the use of local 
applications of nature’s healing air. We have spent nearly thirty 
years in the spread of this plan of curing catarrh; and, in cases 
where the malady is light or temporary, and the diet is not bad, cures 
have been accomplished as though they were miracles. 

The principle on which catarrh is removed by the use of fresh 
air is this: The atmosphere is healing if the sun has shone on it, 
and the membrane is relieved of its excess of moisture by the cur¬ 
rent of moving air passing over it in unusual quantities. There must 
be no sound of the air passing through the nostrils, as that means 
friction and irritation. Every respiration should be noiseless. 
The lungs should be completely emptied with all the speed possible 
in the silent passage of the air, and then should be packed full in 
the inhalation. Let this be repeated for a minute, then rest for a 
minute, and repeat again, until you have spent half an hour in 
the exercise. 

If it is done out of doors and in the sunlight or in places where 
the sun has been shining, the results will be very soon felt. One 
such period of practice generally leaves the nose free from the run¬ 
ning mucus. Frosty air is even more effective. The exercise 
can he used at night if the place is not very damp; get on the side 
of the house where there has been sunlight during the day. 

If the nose is closed by dried mucus, the way to open it is 
as follows: Fill the lungs full of air, hold the breath by putting 
the thumb and first finger against the nostrils, and let the air 
press against them, taking great care that there is not pressure 
enough to affect the ears. Eepeat this for minutes, or hours, if 
necessary, until there is a loosening of the mucus; and then the 
passage will soon be clear. 

Catarrh is a flowing of mucus through the membrane affected. 
The air carries off much of the moisture into the lungs and out to 
the atmosphere, in either case removing it from the membrane. 
Success depends solely on the speed with which the respiration is 
carried on. Failure is impossible if this part of the treatment is 
blended with the directions that precede. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904. by Ralston Company. 
AH Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special ©Treatment 


NUMBER 5 



We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 


This Treatmfnt is private. It is rented to the Inside Member 
to whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The member has no right to loan this mono¬ 
graph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or to come 
into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the same. 
This rule does not forbid the use of the Treatment by the member in 
behalf of any child or aged person who is actually in the member’s 
household; but all others must become Inside Members of the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help of this Treat¬ 
ment. To become such members will not cost anything, as may be 
seen by consulting the final pages of the book of Inside Member¬ 
ship, if the steps are taken as there directed. 

8 


(113) 






114 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FIVE. 


THE GREAT HEADACHE TREATMENT. 

A headache is evidence of a disturbance, more or less serious, 
of the functions of the body. A person who is in normal health 
would never know what a headache is; while others are afflicted 
with the malady in one or more forms. 

We divide this form of malady into two classes: 

1. The first class includes headaches that are due to the irri¬ 
tated nerve by reason of injury to its flow of vitality. 

2. The second class includes headaches that are due to the in¬ 
fluence on the nerves of the blood or tissue that comes in contact 
with them. 

In order to understand the difference between these two classes 
of headaches, you must realize the fact that the nerves alone have 
power to give painful sensations; when they are dead or sleeping 
they suffer no pain and you feel none. They run in wires all through 
the body, and in their centers are currents of vitality that cause 
all the sensations that you feel. The first class of headaches is 
due to some wrong condition of those currents that flow in the 
nerves. We will call them nervous, whether neuralgic or generally 
suffused throughout the network of nerves that enter the head. 

The second class of headaches includes those that arise from 
influences not in the nerves themselves, but that come from the 
blood of the surrounding conditions, and they must be treated in 
quite a different way from the first class. 

When this distinction is understood, then there will be an intel- 
igent plan of dealing with headaches. 

Let us look at the first class. It is due to a wrong condition 
in the nerves themselves. To know what this means, just think of 
a line of telegraph wires that lead from house to house and place 
to place in a country; think that they must be made of good 
material as wires, or they will not carry the current of electricity; 
think that the current itself must be steady and full, or the flow of 
the vital power will be uneven and intermittent; and you have 
some idea of what is meant by the first class of headaches. One 
thing, however, occurs in this class that cannot be compared to 
electricity, and that is the fact that the energy of the body is often 
deficient, not only in quantity but also in quality. 


HEAD ACHES. 


115 


This class of headaches has two divisions: one includes those 
that are caused by the current of vitality being weakened, and the 
other by its being mixed with other things that change its quality. 
Both relate to the nerves themselves as the origin of the pain. 

When the headaches are due to weakened vitality, the current 
flits and is in an irritable condition. This weakness is either 
temporary or chronic. It is chronic when it attends some condi¬ 
tion of the health, such as a fixed disease, or anaemia, or other 
disability that has come into the body apparently to stay. 

It is temporary when it attends some act of indiscretion or 
loss of vitality that has come after an overtax of the system. As 
this is the most frequent cause of headaches, and includes fully 
three-fourths of all cases, we will speak of them first. The prin¬ 
ciple is that any act that saps the vitality or exhausts the energy 
of the vital powers will weaken the flow of nervous life throughout 
the head, and the ensuing irritation becomes acute pain. The 
following are some of the things that give rise to this, the most 
prolific of all kinds of headaches: 

1. A severe mental strain, as in study or other use of the mind, 
will not only weaken the nervous energy, but will also lower the 
vitality of the heart and set up pains in either that region or in 
the brain. There is no cure but absolute cessation from the mental 
efforts until the pains have gone; then renew the effort in slight 
degree only. 

2 . Worry will cause the same loss of energy; and the cure is 
in the cultivation of magnetism. We dislike very much to refer 
to one treatment in another, but we would deceive O'ur members if 
we omitted this statement, and we could not possibly give the treat¬ 
ment on magnetism in anything less than a big book by itself. 
Worry is something that defies medicine and skill from the stand¬ 
point of the practitioner. Our books have taken up the subject, and 
there have been thousands of cures by a plan of action that goes 
to the centers from which the feeling of worry arises. As com¬ 
pared with hard mental study, worry is even more dangerous. 

3. Lack of sleep is another prolific cause of headaches from this 
weakening process of the nerves. A person who cannot sleep at 
night must completely reform the habits of living, for the condi¬ 
tion is extremely threatening. The first step is to adhere strictly 
to the high regime of the book of Inside Membership, which you 
own. The next step is to take up the plan described in the greatest 


116 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FIVE- 

of all the natural cures that has ever been given to the world, and 
this of itself makes too large a treatise to be inserted here. 

4. Constipation is another cause of the loss of vitality. It 
sooner or later leads to many of the stealthy chronic diseases that 
give no hope of cure after they have become seated. The presence 
of effete matter in the alimentary canal stifles the nutrition and 
deprives the blood and especially the nerves of their most needed 
elements, with the result that they suffer and the head is the focus 
of the pains. Constipation, in another way, also sets up headaches, 
and this is by the clogging of the blood, the interference with the 
circulation, and the dulness that attends a sluggish action of the 
functions. All these come from this one source of danger. Plenty 
of sleep and perfect freedom of the bowels are the basis principles 
of a good head. 

5. Fixing the attention on one line of thought or action will 
lead to a headache by overtaxing the nervous energy. This is 
not the same as studying. The attention may be fixed in one 
line of work, as in constant sewing, or in doing the same thing all 
the time; or it may arise from playing cards. The worst cases of 
suffering from nervous headaches have followed the endless playing 
of games, where the body gets no exercise, the lungs are cramped 
by the stifling sitting posture, the mind is held to the hope of taking 
tricks, and chagrin fills the heart at each defeat or bad hand. 
Many women and a large number of unemployed men are able to 
find time even in the late forenoons, the afternoons and long into 
the night, for this most senseless way of treating the human body, 
the divine gift of the Creator. Instead of devoting four or five 
hours at a stretch to this bad habit of holding the attention fixed 
on cards, nature requires that a multitude of other matters should 
claim the interest, and that most of them should demand physi¬ 
cal activity. If you defy nature’s laws you cannot escape its 
penalties. 

6. A common cause of headache is blind indigestion. By this 
is meant that food that does not cause distress in the stomach will 
often do harm without making its effects known directly. It is 
a common saying that a person can eat flannel cakes, or muffins, or 
griddle cakes, or other quickly cooked forms of flour and not feel 
any ill results from it. In the first place, it is impossible for any 
human beings to eat those things without producing ill results; they 
may not actually feel them, but they exist. “ I have no indiges- 


HEADACHES. 


117 


tion, and am free from pain,” says the woman who is advised 
against eating that kind of food, as she complains of her headache. 

The latter malady is the real effect of eating the food; the 
stomach gave back no pain, and there was no distress in the ali¬ 
mentary canal at any part, although flatulence and biliousness 
followed. The cure for headaches that attend blind indigestion 
is in the adoption of the diet and habits of high regime in the book 
of Inside Membership. It is useless for us to repeat the long 
system here, as it is given in its best form in that book, and you 
must of necessity own that volume before you can secure this 
treatment. 

7. Sexual excesses are the cause of this kind of headache that 
is preceded by nervous weakness. The pains may be confined to 
the back of the head, or may extend through to the eyeballs or to 
the top of the skull. You can readily see that medicines will do 
no good as long as the cause is continued. 

8. The hungry headache is likewise due to weakness of the vi¬ 
tality, and indicates that the former meal, however heavy, was not 
sufficiently assimilated to give the body all the nutrition it re¬ 
quired. The cure is to eat less and oftener. Five light meals 
a day on the line of foods in high regime will effectually over¬ 
come this trouble. The less you eat, provided it is wholesome 
food, the greater proportion of nutrition you will receive. Per¬ 
sons who are subject to hungry headaches will find it necessary 
to eat often and to take less food at each meal. 

9. Colds, drafts, exposures, and lack of clothing will, if the 
natural temperature of the body is lowered, cause this kind of 
headache. The cure is at once suggested. 


10. The second kind of trouble in the head is due to interference 
with the quality of the nervous fluids that travel along the electric 
wires within the body. To understand this, we must first take 
notice of the fact that the vitality of the body is the product of the 
action of the acid and the alkaline conditions of the blood and all 
the mucus streams of the system. 

There is no doubt that these two influences, the acid and the 
alkaline, produce the vital spark of life in the body; just as two 
counter chemicals will give rise to mechanical electricity. 



118 


SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER FIVE- 


There must be constantly maintained a certain poise of these two 
influences; and when the acid is in excess or the alkali is in ex¬ 
cess, pains follow the disturbance that ensues. These pains may be 
about the heart, but they are generally in the head. 

A few drops too much of vinegar, a sour apple, a bit of cran¬ 
berry sauce, a pear that has a certain acidity, or anything that 
causes the blood to depart from its usual routine of work, will 
set up these electrical pains, for that is their true name. The most 
frequent cause is a line of food that is not cereal or animal. Re¬ 
member this, and pay attention to the foods that you eat, espec¬ 
ially if you find yourself subject to headaches during the fruit or 
the vegetable season. This does not mean to let fruits or vegetables 
alone; but there are some that should always be avoided unless 
the health be perfect. Tomatoes often set the system out of order, 
and headaches follow, or there may be pains in some other part 
of the body, especially around the stomach, the heart or the lungs, 
after indulging in tomatoes. They contain a strong oxalic acid 
that does not hurt the stomach, but that throws the blood out of 
healthy condition. Watermelon may not do the least harm to the 
alimentary canal, yet may result in headaches. The same is true 
of strawberries, gooseberries, cantaloupes, beets, turnips, parsnips, 
carrots and almost any other watery or fibrous vegetable. We 
have known of headaches following the eating of green string beans, 
but not of the beans themselves, showing that the pod holds a 
chemical compound that is not good for some persons, although 
it is one of the very best articles of food in the vegetable line. By 
lessening the use of green foods, and of fruits, the blood may soon 
form the habit of balancing itself, and thus the headaches may pass 
away not to return until the next summer, when the change of diet 
will again cause disturbance. 

Study the effect of such foods upon your system. 

In some cases the use of pears shows peculiar results. If the 
variety is of one kind, no pains follow; but if of another kind, 
then the head will ache. Thus there are persons who suffer soon 
after eating a Clapp’s Favorite pear, who find a Bartlett just the 
opposite; and there are some who cannot eat a tart apple without 
having a headache, while a sweet apple has no bad influence over the 
nerves. Mellow apples cooked in just the same way as hard apples 
are prepared will be free from these results, while the hard ones 
will lead to headaches, 


HEADACHES. 


119 


When the diet has run along in animal food and cereal food, 
or starchy food, a little of the vegetable or fruit is most salutary, 
but when vegetables and fruits have been eaten freely for some 
time, then the increase of this class of food will cause the severest 
headaches. The same is true when there is a sudden change from 
one class of diet to another. 

One of the most effective methods of curing chronic headache 
is the plan of diet that depends on cereals, or starchy foods, and 
a little of the animal class, while the fruits and vegetables are 
omitted. Fat meat is very serviceable in establishing a high state 
of vitality, and of bringing back the nervous poise that is necessary. 
When once the head is free from pain, do not take chances again 
of inviting it back by reckless eating. Let every article of food 
be studied in its effect on your health, until you know just what 
will hurt you and what will not. 


11. Defective eyesight is too often a neglected cause of headaches. 
When the eyes are off their focus the attempt to use them will al¬ 
most invariably set up headache. Instances are very abundant of 
this kind of origin of even periodical headaches, involving nausea 
and even bilious vomiting. The explanation is given as follows: 

There passes over the entire nervous system a storm that is not 
unlike the electric fury of a disturbed summer afternoon. The 
centers are attacked by the irritation that has its rise in the optic 
nerve. It will be recalled that the least particle of dust, so small 
that it may not be visible to the naked eye, may lodge in the nose 
and set up violent sneezing; its influence reaching the nerve-cen¬ 
ters that control the diaphragm whence comes the impulse to sneeze'. 
The nerves of smell may be sensitive to any odor and the same 
result ensue. Or a change of temperature of less than a degree 
may do the same thing. The irritation need not be measurable. 
This is true in the malady known as hay fever or rose cold. Even 
the picture of a rose may so play upon the imagination that violent 
sneezing and running at the eyes may follow. 

Eye-strain is often the cause of this storm called the headache. 
Reading or using the eyes on an empty stomach, especially before 
breakfast, if often a cause. But the most frequent of all kinds of 
eve-strain is when the sight requires the aid of glasses and they are 



120 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FIVE- 

not obtained. This experience comes to the notice of thousands 
of physicians every year. A man suffers continually from headaches 
of the most torturing kind; he has tried medicines, treatments 
and many other plans to get relief, but none has come. The trouble 
is that he needs glasses and does not know it. When the glasses 
are fitted by an expert, he is at once cured of the headaches. But 
when the glasses are a bad fit, as they are sometimes said to be, 
or when they are worn too long after the focus of the eyes has 
changed or the demand for a different fit has arisen, then the pains 
come back. It is not every person who wears glasses who is free 
from headaches; for the glasses must be adjusted to the needs of 
the eyes. 

It is true that too many persons are troubled with defective 
eyesight, and this is due largely to the fact that the blood has 
been kept in an impoverished state during childhood and youth, 
thereby preventing it from building true optic nerves and other 
parts of the structure involved in vision. More children are 
found to-day with bad eyesight than ever before, and their numbers 
are on the increase, and at the same time there are more adultera¬ 
tions in food, and more tons of baking powder used every day than 
ever before. 

Always take into consideration the part that the eyes may play 
in any chronic condition of the head and its nerves. 


We come now to the class of headaches that are due to outside 
influences, and these will be named in the order of their fre¬ 
quency. By outside influences is meant the pressure or other in¬ 
terference with the nerves of the head. 

1. The most common of these disturbing causes is the sluggish 
state of the blood. It must be remembered that the contents of 
the whole circulatory system are poured rapidly into the brain, 
like an impetuous river that never lessens its onward rush. When 
this flow is not relieved as fast as it enters the head, or, to be 
more accurate, when it comes in freely and goes out only under 
special pressure, the head is sure to ache. The lesser form of that 
kind of headache is a dull feeling, a listless and wearied sensation 
that cannot be shaken off by medicines or the mere act of the will. 



HEADACHES. 


121 


The milder form of this headache is not called a painful condi¬ 
tion, as it is only a disagreeable feeling. 

When it is slightly increased, the dull headache ensues. 

When it is more severe, then the whole system feels the trouble; 
the eyes are partly blinded, the vision is disturbed, and there is 
a weakness at the stomach, occasionally followed by nausea. The 
blood may be rich enough or too rich, and the whole trouble may 
be due to the stagnated life of the body. 

These are degrees of the same kind of headache. 

The habits of circulation change under different influences. 
One person may have hot hands and feet; another may have the 
reverse. Or the same person may be flushed at one time and over¬ 
warm, while at another time the opposite condition may prevail. 
The rule of this kind of a headache seems to be that the person that 
is well supplied with good blood, and yet lacks active circulation, 
will suffer from periodical pains in the head and from spells of 
sickness that are centered in the stomach and nerves that asso¬ 
ciate directly with the brain. 

The cure is not to be found in medicines. 

The blood needs more of the active quality of outdoor air, and 
the lungs need to give up some of its carbon dioxide, which can 
only be done by special practice in deep exhalations. 

A sitting posture invites the conditions that lead to this kind 
of headache, and it is better to be on the feet as much as possible. 
This need not be done to tire the patient, for when one is unac¬ 
customed to standing or to activity on the feet, the better plan 
is to rest every few minutes, and at length the body will be able 
to endure more standing and require less sitting. 

The sluggish headache, as this is called, is due to the fulness 
of the blood and its slow movement through the body. For many 
years the well known hot water cure was in vogue, and some per¬ 
sons claimed for it the solution of the whole trouble. It consisted 
in two things: First, the top of the head, or wherever the pain 
was seated, was subjected to cloths dipped in hot water, and changed 
every few minutes, until the blood had been thinned by the heat 
and made to move on more rapidly. The second part was the 
drinking of very hot water, which the mouth and stomach were 
gradually trained to endure. 

This form of the hot water idea was excellent for the sluggish 
kind of circulation, the clogging of the brain by stagnant circula- 


122 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FIVE. 

tion, as it has been incorrectly called. It is really a slow move¬ 
ment of the blood, and the hot water thins it and gives it more 
impulse, thereby urging it on. This is specially true of the local 
applications at the top of the head, for hot water at the seat of 
any pain is a help and often a relief of the attack. 

The drinking of hot water serves to wash and cleanse the stomach 
of its catarrhal deposits and deat-slime, which are quite abundant 
when the blood is sluggish. 

Now comes the danger when the same treatment is used for the 
opposite kind of headache, due to insufficient quantity of blood in 
the brain. To thin an already thinned blood is quite injurious to 
the nerves and to the tissue that should be supplied with more 
nutrition. 

The sluggish headache is caused by a slowly moving blood, and 
the nervous or sickly headache, better called anaemic, is due to 
lack of blood. The former is aided by the use of hot water 
bandages and the drinking of very hot water; while the latter is 
aided by a line of treatment exactly opposite in its nature. 

The after effects of the use of too much hot water are debility 
of the stomach and a tendency to a sore scalp. 

The better treatment, even for sluggish blood, is to adopt a 
much more active life and greater variety of activities. A house¬ 
keeper may think that she has a multitude of activities because 
she has many different things to do; but if all her work is in the 
line of housekeeping she has but one real line of action. Play is 
denied her; and by this we mean the play that nature gives to all 
its life by instinct. You might think that cards afforded play, 
but nature teaches none of her animals to play cards, for that is 
not action. The kitten plays with brain and muscles combined; 
the cub plays with brain and muscles combined; the young of all 
energetic life is filled with the spirit of such play, for it is ex¬ 
hilarating and developing. Card-playing develops weak lungs 
and consumption, as well as weak blood and anaemia. The house¬ 
keeper who has no line of activity outside of her duties is shut 
up in one mold; she needs play that will use the muscles and en¬ 
liven the mind. When she sits to rest and takes up the novel, she 
is only adding to her misery, for her blood is crying for a change 
of impulsive action. Play deepens the respiration and sends the 
blood through the brain with new life. But play is not all, al¬ 
though it ought to be part of the daily life of every human being. 


HEADACHES. 


123 


for as long as its impulses run in life the spirit of youth is kept 
in the body, and real age comes on when there is no love for play. 

There should be an interest in the finer things of life, the art 
of the world, the music of nature and of song and instrument, the 
beauties of skill and genius, all of which lie about us in myriad 
forms. 

New ideas and high ambitions are a necessary part of every 
healthful life. You cannot hold the brain down to narrow work 
and expect it to be free from the dead effects of its living tomb. 
All this may sound like theory, but it is plain fact. If you are the 
wife of a millionaire and are subject to headaches, what advice 
will your physician give you? Let us take it word for word: 
“ You need change of scene and other things to think about. 
Travel and take an interest in everything you see.” How many 
thousands of wealthy women have gone abroad, leaving home and 
family, at great inconvenience to the husband and neglect of the 
children, when the very same principle that is supposed to relieve 
the chronic headaches abroad may be applied without going out 
of the town in which they live. 

The housekeeper who toils all day long and whose work is 
never done, does not have enough variety of action nor enough 
change of mental interests to keep the blood impulsive in the 
brain; and it is this energy of blood that makes it easy to enter 
and to leave the brain. There are many sections of the mind, and 
when you allow the circulation to feed one or two only, you invite 
hard thinking and constant worrying in those limits, and the result 
is sure to be a nervous derangement. It is because of this limited 
line of thinking that you may remain awake at night and think 
yourself into insomnia. Worrying is but the beating of the 
blood at one section of the brain, when it ought to be led to all 
sections in order to ensure freedom from headaches. 

Travel, trips abroad, change of scene, newness of ideas, all these 
are advised by the physicians as a remedy for chronic headaches; 
but they are founded upon one principle, and that is simple enough 
The mind should have new lines of thought, and to have them it 
is necessary to throw aside that novel and take up something that 
is really valuable to the body. A novel, even with its most in¬ 
tensely interesting plot, sinks no deeper in the brain than the 
merest outside shallow surface; therefore it cannot open up any 
mental interests that will relieve the brain of its sluggishness. 


124 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FIVE. 

Here is the advice we gave to a woman who had wealth enough, 
but who loved her home and refused to break it up in order to 
travel, as her doctor had insisted: 

1. Eat a pure diet, some such line of food as we set apart for the 
celebration of Ralston Day, which is the time for pure food. 
Eat much less meat, and no fried stuff of any kind, and nothing 
that contains rich combinations or baking powder; all of which 
may be found explained in our book of Inside Membership. 

2. Put in half an hour of time each day in some kind of play 
that employs the muscles of the whole body gently, and some alert¬ 
ness of the mind. This of itself will effect a change of blood 
impulse in the circulation. 

3. In winter time have a few flowers that you take care of your¬ 
self. Learn how to make cuttings of carnations and to grow 
them; also how to keep roses alive in the house, which not one 
woman in ten thousand can do now. The rose plants are subject 
to disease, and they serve as a lesson to humanity. Skill can save 
them, but when left to themselves they die if they have a special 
value. 

4. In the summer time have a small garden out of doors, and 
work in it fifteen minutes in the morning before breakfast and the 
same time at evening after supper. The work may be very light, 
but it is exhilarating. 

5. Take music lessons, notably on the piano, which allows free¬ 
dom of the lungs; and practice half an hour a day. This is not 
so much for the progress you will make, but to develop activity in 
the musical sections of the brain. There is not one preson in a 
million who would not gain by this practice, even if a real tune were 
never played. From it you should pass to an interest in high class 
music, which in time you will learn to enjoy, although it will be 
a dreadful bore for a while. 

There is no mental interest that does not affect the brain. 

This law has no exception. 

6. Have some line of study which interests you. As language 
is the most beneficial of mental studies, the Voldik is by far the 
best to undertake. The cost of ten cents is but a trifle compared 
with the more expensive studies that are available. To a very 
ambitious mind the Ralston books of advanced studies are the 
best food for development. These cover all the ground of varied 
mental interests. 


HEADACHES. 


125 

7. Have some ambition to achieve. We believe the best of all 
ambitions is the protection of health in yonr community by look¬ 
ing after the food, the wells, and the conditions that make ill- 
health possible. It need not be done by you in person, as organiza¬ 
tion will effect these things if you are one to push it to its work. 

When there is pain to be relieved and it is due to the sluggish 
flow of the blood, the practice of deep respiration will set it free 
and take the pain away in much quicker time than the use of 
hot water, with none of the after effects of debility. To accomplish 
this breathing the lungs should be emptied; then while keeping 
the air out raise both arms to a high position over the head, then 
pass them up and down at full length without bending at the 
elbows, moving them laterally. They should be raised and lowered 
four times; that is, raised four times then lowered as many, all 
the while allowing no air to enter the lungs. Then slowly and 
inaudibly inhale all you possibly can, and repeat the four double 
movements while the lungs are held full of air. Do this for four 
minutes, or until you feel dizy or faint. Always keep within your 
limits, and do not overdo. 

Do nothing by haphazard. 

This grand exercise will drive the blood all through the body, 
enrich it and make it better both in quality and in energy of cir¬ 
culation. It should be performed at an open window if the 
weather will not permit your going out of doors; otherwise get 
out in the fresh air and on the sunny side of the house if in 
winter. Do not inhale air from a shady and dank side of the 
house. 

A few repetitions will not suffice. It should be persisted in for 
a while, then a rest taken and again repeated, and so kept up until 
the blood has reached its normal condition. Try to get deeper 
and deeper with each new effort to empty the lungs, and with each 
inhalation, which should be slow and silent, but nevertheless ener¬ 
getic. The first day or so the chest may feel lame, in which case 
allow it to rest from further repetition until it has recovered, 
using lard-oil to rub upon the lame parts. This can be procured 
at any drug store, and should be rubbed for five minutes on the 
body over the lame muscles. 

We have found that this method of overcoming the kind of 
headache which is referred to has been uniformly successful, and 
medicines have almost always failed. 


126 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FIVE. 


No greater mistake could be made than the use of deadening 
drugs to still pain, for they lessen the activity of the heart in time; 
and in after months or years that organ will give out when some 
heavier malady attacks it. Many persons die from pneumonia 
and diphtheria who might have survived but for the fact that, in 
previous years, they have been addicted to the practice of stopping 
headaches by the use of drugs that still the pain at the expense of 
the vitality of the heart. The failure of that organ is most 
feared by physicians to-day who know what kind of medicines have 
been administered for quieting neuralgic pains and headaches, 
Avoid them. 


The opposite form of suffering, known as megrim or migraine, 
is due to lack of blood in the body, or lack of supply to the ex¬ 
tremities, including the brain, the hands and feet. It begins with 
chilliness, coldness at the hands and feet, and along the spinal 
column; attended by a black spot in the vision, or a wavy glim¬ 
mering along the outside corner of the range of sight, which soon 
spreads. The latter disturbances are sometimes absent, although 
the coldness is present. 

The mind becomes depressed with a fear of impending danger 
or evil; there is great uneasiness and restlessness of the body; a 
boring pain begins and soon becomes intense, or the patient may 
go to bed and awake with the full pain in the morning. 

The seriousness of this malady may be understood when it is 
said that some persons have the feeling as if a gimlet were being 
bored into the head and the gimlet were gradually increasing in 
size. 

As the pain becomes worse, the vision is less affected, showing 
that it was the advance symptom. The stomach is now involved 
and turns sick. Vomiting occurs, but does not relieve the pain in 
the head. The eyeballs are tender to the touch, but one more so 
than the other. The pupils contract, but not equally. The mouth 
is cold and clammy. A position on the right side on the couch 
or bed gives a little relief from the stomach disorder, but the 
least movement starts it again and the head suffers from the 
slightest jar. After a number of hours sleep in troubled form 
comes as a partial relief, but on awaking there is listlessness and 



HEADACHES. 


127 


a dull or depressed feeling that lasts for days. The headache 
may return in a week, or not for a month or more. 

It is due to a low state of the blood in which the red corpuscles 
are lacking. The first step is that which we call building up the 
vitality of the blood. Six meals are required each day, but they 
should not be heavy, nor should they include any of the forbidden 
articles of the book of Inside Membership. This must be strictly 
understood and obeyed, or there will be no success in the treatment. 

There are no medicines that can be of avail. Those generally 
employed serve only to deaden the pain by deadening the nerves 
and the heart, and this depression of the vital functions is just what 
should be avoided. 

The six meals each day should consist of the following articles, 
or enough selected from them to sustain life: 

White flour baked in loaves of bread in the manner stated in the 
book of Inside Membership. 

Corn meal mush at evening, and fried the next morning, the 
crisp part being left out and the balance eaten with butter only. 

Rice in any or all of the forms of the three regimes. 

Eggs in any of the forms of the three regimes. 

Beef, lamb, fowl and other meats allowed in high regime only. 

Soups, broths and other forms of liquid diet, enriched with pearl 
barley or rice in abundance. 

Potatoes in any of the forms of high regime. 

Vegetables likewise. 

Fruits, except that acids must be omitted. Vinegar, lemon juice 
and sour or tart fruits are just what help to bring on this kind 
of headache, and therefore they should not be allowed. We know 
of many cases where this kind of headache has followed the use of 
pickles, and vinegar on lettuce, cucumbers and other articles. 
There is nothing that kills the red corpuscles quicker than vinegar 
or sour fruits. 

These facts are well established. 

The foregoing list may be arranged to suit yourself, but the 
morning meal should be taken about half an hour after rising, 
thus differing from the plan of high regime; while the second 
meal should be largely liquid, as soups, sipped milk and toast. The 
third meal should occur at twelve o’clock, and the fourth in the 
middle of the afternoon, or about three o’clock, the fifth at 
six, and the sixth just before retiring. The last should consist of 


128 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIVE. 


hot broth and old toast, just enough to satisfy a slight degree of 
hunger. 

The dinner and supper, or the third and fifth of these meals, 
should be on the basis of the meals given in high regime. 

This plan will overcome the weak condition of the blood, unless 
some forbidden article is taken into the stomach. Read the 
chapter of forbidden foods and drinks in the book of Inside Mem- 
ship. 

But there is often a deeper cause than deficient blood and 
depressed vitality for this kind of headache, and it is called by 
physicians under the names of anxiety, worry, grief, disappoint¬ 
ment, mental excitement, excesses in marriage and other but simi¬ 
lar influences. 

When the cause of a mental derangement or nervous disturbance 
is more deeply seated than in the habits of diet or the breathing 
of foul air in close rooms, or overwork in some form, then there 
is no recourse except to the four graded courses of magnetism, the 
beginning of which is probably at hand in this very connection, 
and is known as Self-Magnetism. 

Make the acquaintance of all the outdoor air and life that is 
possible. Do not stay indoors unless there is a reason why you 
should. Social games, novels, mere chatter with friends and 
similar waste of time are not reasons why you should remain in out 
of the healthful air. Talking is wearying, not merely to your 
friends but to yourself as well, and it takes a strong fund of vitality 
to sustain the clatter of excited conversation, in which, for the 
most part, you do nothing more than attend to the affairs of other 
people. Avoid every unnecessary moment indoors; hut do not make 
the mistake of believing that the fact of being out of doors is 
enough, for you should he active part of the time out of doors. 

There are many girls and women who are weak from anaemia 
who go out to drive or ride, and who think their salvation of health 
is to be secured in this one good thing only; they abuse their stom¬ 
achs by a wrong diet, and they abuse their health by wrong habits, 
yet think that outdoor life will atone for these faults. Safety from 
disease is secured as you would make a rope to hold the great ship 
to its moorings: each strand must be good; and outdoor life is hut 
one strand. 

Cures cannot be effected by any one influence, or by any one 
good thing. Nature is not one-sided. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER G 



paulttj l>torc?a©fo 



We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 

This Treatment is private. It is rented to the Inside Member 
to whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The member has no right to loan this mono¬ 
graph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or to come 
into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the same. 
This rule does not forbid the use of the Treatment by the member in 
behalf of any child or aged person who is actually in the member’s 
household; but all others must become Inside Members of the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help of this Treat¬ 
ment. To become such members will not cost anything, as may be 
seen by consulting the final pages of the book of Inside Member¬ 
ship, if the steps are taken as there directed. 

9 


(129) 





130 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 


THE GREAT TREATMENT EOR STOMACH TROUBLES. 

The following method is brought down almost to the beginning 
of the year 1905, and includes all previous details of value as well 
as new ideas that relate to the cure of a faulty stomach. 

This organ is so closely related to the existence of the body that 
it may be described as the center of life, holding the chief interest 
of the mind, first, last and always. Thought is both conscious and 
automatic, and there is but little time in the twenty-four hours 
when there is not something doing for the stomach, either in the 
open process of planning and thinking, or in the silent habits of the 
faculties. 

All humanity centers around its stomach. 

The first motion of the lips at birth is the instinctive sucking 
action, which needs only something suckable to attach itself to. 

All through the youth of a healthful infant and growing boy or 
girl the stomach is constantly teasing the mind and demanding 
attention. Not content with three meals a day and lunches be¬ 
tween, there must be fruit and confections to make good the de¬ 
mand for further interest, and these are topped off with things 
that keep the mouth active. 

If there were no stomach there would be no chewing action of 
the mouth and no desire to swallow something, for these motions 
are the offspring of the appetite, either normal or abnormal. 

Hence we find people chewing, drinking, smoking and engaging 
in a multitude of interests to keep the stomach satisfied. The 
fact that there is but little appetite does not prove that this organ 
is not being catered to; for when it is completely collapsed it still 
exerts an influence over the life of its possessor. It is a common 
thing to hear the remark: “lama very light eater. I care but 
little for what goes into my stomach.” And then the things that 
do go in the stomach, although not food, are the very cause of the 
light appetite. 

Under normal conditions the stomach will digest all the whole¬ 
some articles of food that are provided by nature, if taken at 
proper times and under fit conditions. The plainer the food the 
more readily it will be disposed of by the stomach and turn to 


faulty stomach. 


131 


good blood. When the appetite is so poor that it must be catered 
to, then it is time to call a halt and take up with plain eating. 

When the food must be specially seasoned, or richly prepared, 
or induced into the alimentary canal by stimulants, the only safe 
course, to pursue is to stop all eating and starve for a few days. 
This is the most approved method of starting the treatment of 
stomach disorders, and it is the most approved at the present day. 

The starving should continue until there is a longing for some¬ 
thing to eat, and then this longing should be met by the plainest 
and most wholesome of foods. 

The result of the starving method is to use up all the bad food 
that remains in the blood, for the stomach of a starving man will 
digest anything, good or hurtful; and the blood brings its food 
in and through this organ to be acted upon by the gastric juices. 
This fact is now beginning to be recognized by investigators, but 
is generally unknown. A little experiment will prove it to be 
true. 

After the cleaning process is over, the diet should consist of 
water for two full days, but water may be taken during the time 
when the old material is being consumed, which will occupy about 
two days also. This keeps the stomach empty of foods for four 
days or more. It is fasting with the exception that water may be 
taken freely. It furnishes oxygen and hydrogen, the two most 
numerous of all the food elements of life. Carbon and nitrogen 
are practically all that are needed to complete the food requirements, 
although some slight quantities of a very few others are necessary 
for supplying the waste in bone, hair, nails, skin, nerves, etc. 

The air furnishes one form of nitrogen, and much more of this 
element comes from the air than is supposed. 

During the four days of starving the patient should seek all 
the aid that can be derived from deep inhalations of pure air, 
followed by full exhalations from the lungs. This practice must be 
made a business, just as it is in the best and most successful sys¬ 
tems of curing consumption. 

It is a well known fact that an abundance of pure air, fresh 
and direct from the outdoor activities of nature, will stimulate 
the stomach as nothing else will do, and that the most vigorous of 
appetites will follow this practice. To make a business of it the 
lungs must first be emptied and then filled by the natural rebound 
of the diaphragm. This should be studied and put into perfect 


132 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 

execution long before the time set for the four days of starving, 
so that soreness and extra suffering may be avoided. It is a very 
simple matter to learn how to empty the lungs completely and 
to allow the air to follow in by the principle of the rebound, then 
encourage it to fill the lungs as full as possible; but it cannot be 
established as a habit without persistent exercise, not all at once, 
but a few minutes at a time, and many times daily. 

With this as a preparation you are ready to begin the cleaning 
out process of four days’ starving. As we have said it takes about 
two days to digest the old material that is doing injury to the 
blood, and there should be two more days devoted to the extra 
use of pure water. While it is allowable to drink what is needed 
for the first two days, we suggest that the amount should not be 
excessive; but, after that time, the amount of water should be 
as great as you can take. 

Distilled water is preferred, and it can be purchased in almost 
any large city in America. It must of necessity become the drink¬ 
ing water of the world in time; but the water should not only be 
distilled, but should also be adapted to the conditions of pure air, 
which is done by keeping it in open air in a cold place for about 
twenty-four hours; although pouring it back and forth from one 
pitcher to another for a few minutes will establish its true condi¬ 
tion. Absolutely direct distilled water is not good for the system. 
The best of all water for this treatment is rain water if it can 
be obtained pure and free from odor. As it holds so great value 
to the health of the body, it ought to be made the subject of 
special care by men who wish to secure it for sale. There is 
almost always a market for such water if it is free from the ob¬ 
jections stated, for it is already aerated by nature. It is the dis¬ 
tillation of the clouds, and the time will come when humanity will 
obtain all its drinking water from this source. When that time 
arrives there will be less aging of the body and less disease of the 
blood. 

Many persons will say that it is very difficult to get rain water. 
They mean that they do not care to make the effort to get it. If 
we are where there is rain in any part of the world we can get 
rain water with very little effort, but other people will not get it 
for us, as they do not have the incentive to make the effort. A 
man or woman who lacks the inventive instinct of the brain to know 
what are the simple steps to be taken to secure rain water ought to 


faulty stomach. 


133 


throw away that novel and discard that daily paper, and let the 
mind work in channels under the surface for awhile. It is the su¬ 
perficial and helpless thinking of the present age that keeps so many 
persons in the conditions of weak mental force and weak physical 
action. Executive ability will accomplish anything, but it cannot 
feed itself on the surface thinking of the brain. Cheap reading and 
cheap talk never get beneath the surface of the brain. Health and 
recovery are not to be secured by taking doses of prepared cures; 
they come and can only come from doses of active and energetic 
common sense. The time is quickly passing when medicines will 
bring health. So many generations of the immediate past have 
been dosed with drugs that the present age cannot longer endure 
the effects and carry the load of inheritance; and, for this potent 
reason, the greatest specialists and experts in the cure of disease, 
even among the medical fraternity, are turning their faces from 
the use of medicines all they dare to and taking up with the eternal 
principles of nature and common sense. No move in the history 
of science is more marked than this, and it speaks well for the 
future. 

The foregoing part of this treatment is designed to clear the 
way for the cure of the faulty stomach. It purposes to give nature 
her normal sway in the effort to eat and digest the food needed by 
the weakened patient. You may call the stomach condition what 
you please, the fact remains that it is abnormal, and nature 
seeks to get back to her normal state. Recent experiments show that 
the four days of starving, with the two past days of that period 
devoted to the use of air and water, will start nature into her 
normal tendencies if she is encouraged by proper after efforts. 

There are thousands of ways of getting out of the state of health, 
and but few that lead back again. It is like a man who is lost in 
a maze of roads that lead through a great city; he may diverge 
from his own highway into numerous byways, but he has but one 
true direction to take to get back to the path again. 

We assume that you are afflicted with a stomach that has one 
or more diseased conditions, and that you wish only one kind of 
condition in place of them, and that is one of perfect health. You 
may call it gastritis, or indigestion, or dyspepsia, or lack of ap¬ 
petite, or whatever else may seem suited to the facts, but the end 
desired is to have the digestion perfect and the appetite keen. These 


134 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 

we will give you if you will follow the present treatment care¬ 
fully to the end and live up to its requirements for the time in 
which the cure is being effected, which may not exceed six weeks in 
the worst case. 

Having given yourself up to the four days’ basis as stated, the 
next thing is to ascertain if there is mucus in the stomach. 

This is a condition that is not necessarily dangerous, but that 
will in time use up the best blood of the body and bring on acute 
attacks of gastritis and end in death, possibly in a few hours. 

The stomach when so afflicted is lined with a tenacious and ob¬ 
stinate mucus that clings to its folds and will not let go unless 
forced off. This mucus is ropy and alkaline. It forms a wall be¬ 
tween the lining of the stomach and the food that enters that 
organ; and one can readily see the utter impossibility of digestion 
under such conditions, for this process depends on the entire bulk 
of the food coming in contact with the wall-membrane of the 
stomach and being macerated by it. 

The malady is a common one, and it is stated by doctors that 
few persons are wholly free from this condition. But it is gen¬ 
erally mild and can be overcome by the use of plenty of water, 
unless the mucus has fastened itself against the wall of the 
stomach with such tenacity that it will not move. 

In the latter condition the food remains in the stomach until it 
begins to ferment, and then turns putrid to some degree. Nature 
now comes to the rescue and throws it out by causing vomiting. 
The food, instead of furnishing nutrition to the blood, has taken 
some of the value and strength away. Gases are formed, and the 
gastric juices are kept from the food so that the protective methods 
of nature are partly overcome, and in time ulcers and cancers may 
result. 

When there is belching from the stomach, or gases arise from 
the food eaten, it is generally true that this ropy, tenacious, al¬ 
kaline mucus is there shutting the food off from the influence of 
the healthful digestive fluids, and preventing the stomach from 
acting upon it. The four days of starving will not drive the 
trouble away, and something else must be done. The following 
plan of action is found to be the most effective: 

Instead of taking cold water take all the hot water you can, 
using the distilled or rain water, and have it gradually made hotter 


faulty stomach. 


135 


as ypu proceed to drink it. The mouth will endure a much higher 
temperature after being educated up to it than it will take at 
first. This water should be drank on arising in the morning, after 
flushing the colon the night before, as seated in the first Special 
Treatment called Anti-Death. It is but one of the many steps 
there described. 

As soon as the hot water has been taken into the stomach, and no 
more is possible, lie upon the flat of the back in bed, raise the 
knees high with the feet close to the back, and work the stomach 
with the ends of the fingers. Then press the wrists toward the 
middle of the stomach six or eight times; repeat the working of 
the fingers and the action of the wrists; then rub the whole abdomen 
downwards to aid in the peristaltic movement. This must be done 
for fifteen minutes, and even a half hour will not be too long, 
unless the bowels become active, in which case the desired end has 
been partly attained. But the practice ought to be kept up daily 
until there is no more gastric catarrh. It is a complete cure and 
has worked wonders many times in the past year. While it makes 
use of the old hot water treatment, it employs that to a greater 
advantage than ever before and follows it up with speedy victory, 
which was not usually the case before. This part of the treatment 
has three divisions: Take the flushing of the colon at night; drink 
the hot water the next morning before rising; lie upon the back 
and manipulate the stomach and abdomen for a quarter to half an 
hour. Do this daily until there is no more gastritis. 

This should follow the four days’ starving. It will be noted 
that at such time there is some food in the system. 

On the fifth day the glands of the mouth should begin the 
process of digestion. They digest sugars, starches, broths and milk, 
as well as all juice-foods and fruits. 

Gland-digestion is the newest and most advanced step taken 
to-day in the cure of many diseases. It is not new in the sense 
that it has beeai well known for fully twenty years; but no sys¬ 
tematic use has been made of it except in the sanitariums for the 
cure of tuberculosis, and then only in a few of them. In that line 
of cure it is necessary to use much milk, and many persons dislike 
milk, while others find that it curdles in the stomach; and the 
gland-digestion is used to transfer the milk from the mouth di¬ 
rectly into the circulation by the glands of the throat without ever 
entering the stomach. 


136 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 

This wonderful process of nature must more and more come into 
use in the next few years, as many tests are being made of it. 
The objection to it is the fact that it acts slowly, and the patient 
must be taught the art of not swallowing. As time counts for noth¬ 
ing when the sick person seeks health to the exclusion of all other 
things, the objection need not be considered. The art of not swal¬ 
lowing is acquired from necessity in many instances, as where the 
man who chews tobacco holds the juice in his mouth for a long 
time when there is no opportunity for discarding it. He knows 
better than to let it enter the stomach. 

In a long list of severe cases of supposed incurable dyspepsia we 
have found that the following methods are the best for persons 
who are in the worst possible condition, and they will also be 
useful in those cases where the stomach is not completely collapsed. 
It is true that the patient must take part in the cure. If there 
is no chance for this, then the starving process, the flushing of the 
colon, the next morning hot water treatment and the manipulation 
are all to be done by attendants; but the non-swallowing plan will 
not avail, although it is a serious disadvantage to omit it. 

Saliva in the stomach is injurious, unless it accompanies some 
food on which it can act; when alone there it acts upon the stomach 
itself and sets up irritation. The practice of chewing gum or 
other things that are not swallowed, and of allowing the saliva to 
go alone to the stomach weakens and irritates the latter; nor is 
it beneficial to chew gum, etc., even after a meal, as the saliva 
must affiliate with the food in the mouth. If it goes alone to the 
stomach where there is food, it will not act upon it there, as the 
gastric juices are in possession and resent the presence of saliva 
except when mixed with food in the mouth. These facts should be 
kept in mind. Swallowing spittle soon brings on anaemic con¬ 
ditions of the blood. 

Just the opposite is true when the saliva mingles with food in 
the mouth. Dry meal, as of finely cracked corn, or cracked wheat, ' 
will excite the flow of saliva from the glands, and the mouth will 
soon be filled with it. Let such meal be chewed and held in the 
mouth, and all that is thoroughly dissolved will pass back through 
the glands and appear in the circulation as a part of the blood. & 

The glands are averse to taking up any food from the mouth 
unless such food is adapted to the healthful conditions of the blood; 
but this law does not apply to the stomach’s operations. Much 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


137 


the same rule holds true of the colon; the nutritive portion of the 
contents will be taken up into the circulation, and not much else 
will be so absorbed. 

These facts show that the glands and membranes perform valuable 
services in securing food for the body. While it is not true that 
much food can be given to the body of a sick person through the 
colon, owing to the weakened condition of the system, there are 
many instances on record where sufficient has been received to sus¬ 
tain life through a severe crisis. But when a person is in good 
health and the body is strong, the colon will digest a much larger 
proportion of food, and does in fact every day do this very thing. 
Yet if it allowed the poisons to pass freely into the blood, death 
would ensue very soon. As it is the practice of allowing the colon 
to carry its contents too long gives rise to the absorption of some 
of the poisons. 

Likewise it is true that the glands of the throat allow some of 
the bad things that are taken into the mouth to pass into the blood, 
but not in a dangerous quantity. The glands act upon sugars, 
starches, broths, milk, juices, fruits and similar foods; but mostly 
upon the two first. The sugars are valuable to a person who 
wishes great vitality, but they should not enter the stomach, nor 
should they be eaten unless there is other food to accompany them. 
In other words, they are not best alone. They do their most effec¬ 
tive work when there is other food in the stomach, which is passing 
into circulation; for it is true that the stomach gives some of its 
food at once to the blood, and does not pass it on to the lower parts 
of the alimentary canal. 

Gland-digestion, while it is called the non-swallowing method, 
does in fact employ the apparent act of swallowing; but it sends 
the juices to the throat glands and not to the stomach. Yearly 
all persons in conversation, and when the mouth is dry as well as 
at other times, perform this seeming act of swallowing. It may 
be noticed in the effort to take a pill; the pill will remain in the 
mouth in spite of a dozen actual acts of swallowing. But the 
trouble is due to the fact that this kind of swallowing sends noth¬ 
ing down the passage to the stomach, and hence the pill remains 
in the mouth. 

These remarks are necessary in order to teach one of the most 
important of nature’s laws; not one that is new, for it has been in 
operation for thousands of years. 


m SPECIAL fREATMENf NUMBER SIX. 

Gland-digestion will save irritating the stomach to the extent 
that is otherwise necessary. As an illustration of what is meant 
we will cite the following case: A man was engaged in £ long 
term of fasting under the advice of a skilled physician; the reason 
for this treatment being the extreme irritability of the stomach. 
The fasting did not prove the right course to pursue, as the vitality 
was too low, and there had been no food taken for ten days. We. 
asked the physician to allow the patient to take corn meal every 
hour for the waking hours of one day, and cracked wheat for the 
waking hours of the next day, and so alternate for two weeks, using 
all the milk that could be sipped in half-teaspoonful quantities. 
The milk was to be used when there was nothing in the mouth. 
The chewing of com meal, coarsely ground, requires about fifteen 
minutes out of each hour, and care must be taken not to allow any 
to go into the stomach. One must be patient and slow in this 
treatment. The mixture of saliva with the starch of the meal, in 
which some minerals and other food elements are also contained, 
makes the best blood of any known diet, even surpasing the direct 
blood of the dying stear, which has been used to a great extent in 
the past. The meal is uncooked, as well as the cracked wheat. 
In its uncooked state it is of the highest value, and makes the 
purest blood. 

Objection may be made to the use of the com meal and the 
cracked wheat in this way, on the ground that it carries us back 
to the methods of animal feeding; and that is its real merit. The 
animal that is fed on wheat and corn is best fed, and makes the 
most wholesome beef; these articles are the most important in the 
diet of any kind of life; they are the best products of nature. 
The horse and the cow grow strong and acquire their finest con¬ 
dition on such food when it is uncooked, and they do not have the 
slightest trouble in digesting it; yet if they are given the same 
grains cooked in the form in which they appear on the table of 
humanity the horse and the cow would at once be candidates for 
the sick room, the sanitarium, the hospital and the dissecting 
knife. 

But the main fact in favor of this use of com and wheat is in 
the most marvellous cures they have effected under the supervision 
of men of skill and knowledge. In the case referred to the patient 
was able to follow the directions to the letter. He was half- 
starved in the real sense of the word, and he caught up this plan 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


139 


with great eagerness. He seemed surprised, as did his doctor, to 
find that the chewing of corn meal and not allowing it to enter the 
stomach, except in slight accidental swallows that did no harm, 
gave him strength almost at once; for in a w T eek he was what he 
termed a new being. 

So many others have tried it to their advantage that we are 
certain that it is nature’s best plan for the collapsed stomach. We 
therefore give it in the following description: 

DIET FOR THE COLLAPSED STOMACH. 

L Adopt the first part of this treatment as given under the 
name of the starving method. This should last for four days in 
order to use up all the deat food that remains in the system; but 
every detail of the description must be followed as given in the 
first few pages hereof. Then the body is ready for the gland-di¬ 
gestion plan. 

2. In gland-digestion use corn meal coarsely ground, cracked 
wheat not too coarse, milk, beef extracts, broths and whites of 
eggs. These are for the first stage of the cure after the starving is 
over. We use the term starving in the sense that the blood is 
driving or starving out the impurities that have collected in its 
circulation and in the surrounding flesh tissue all through the 
body. 

3. The only point in gland-digestion is to use the above-named 

foods, and to avoid swallowing them, which may be done by taking 
the milk and fluids in sips of a half-teaspoonful at a time. In 
this way a person who has patience and plenty of time may take 
quarts of milk a day without causing curds or fermentation in the 
stomach. We quote the following from the article by Eugene Wood 
in “ Everybody’s Magazine” for 1904, page 800: “ Some people 

would almost rather die than drink milk. * * A grown man 
wants solid food. I suppose they think their food goes into their 
blood in solid chunks and not in milk-like fluid. * * As a matter 
of fact, milk is the surest all-round ration that can be found. 
* * If you take it by teaspoonfuls it won’t curdle in your stomach. 
It ivill be digested before it gets to your stomach!’ He speaks of 
taking it by teaspoonfuls, but it is better to take half the quantity 
of a teaspoonful at a time, and there will be less danger of getting 
any of it by accident into the stomach. 


140 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 


4. Having passed the stage mentioned, it is well to begin the 
use of cooked food, as we do not advocate the uncooked grain as 
a regular diet. Our only reason for not insisting upon it is the 
time required to digest it in the mouth. If you try to hurry you 
will get the meal and wheat in the stomach, and that organ will not 
digest uncooked corn, or wheat, or starches of any kind. 

5. The next step is to use old bread. This must be baked not 
less than two hours, and may be made of the best white flour or of 
Franklin Mills whole wheat flour. After the long bake, allow the 
bread to remain in towels for two days, then slice as needed, toast 
and serve with fresh butter. Chew each bit of toast in the mouth 
until it has all gone; but avoid swallowing it. This requires time, 
but not one-tenth that is needed in chewing the meal or wheat. 

6. We have mentioned the white of an egg. This may be taken 
at any time, but in doses of half a teaspoonful at a time, but as 
rapidly as it will disappear from the mouth. We find that the more 
eggs that are thus taken the better the stomach becomes. The 
white of the egg may or may not irritate the stomach if taken 
directly into it; but it helps it if taken in the blood, for the circu¬ 
lation reaches every part of the body and carries on its work of 
healing. Every part of the tissue that composes the walls of the 
stomach is built by the blood in its motion through the body, and 
not by the food that enters the stomach, and it is a principle of 
nature that the more egg albumin there is in the blood the more 
healing will that agency become in its good work of repair. In 
fact, the very essential law of cure is to heal, and to heal there must 
be repair-material in the blood. There is no other way. 

7. This plan of using egg-whites may be carried on for months, 
until the stomach is perfectly well. When there are days of sick¬ 
ness at the stomach, the patient should fall back upon the first 
step, which is to use the corn meal and cracked wheat uncooked, as 
repair-material is rapidly made by these agencies. 

Eemarkable cures have been effected by these several steps in 
cases where patients were willing to make the trial in good faith, 
and with a devotion to the demands of nature that laid aside the 
questions of time, convenience and impatience. No others can 
get cured, even by a trip to some fairyland where they bleed the 
purses and the good sense of the patrons under the guise that 
drinking water and bathing in it has effected cures through the 
channels of the miracles that are wrought by the imagination. 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


141 


Food is medicine. There is no true medicine that is not food. 
If you must take medicine take it in the form of food that will 
make pure blood at once. No medicine can make blood. It offers 
one kind of irritation for another. It is like the plan of burning 
the foliage off the tree in order to kill the caterpillars on it. No 
medicine heals. It may remove an irritating cause and then 
become harmless or less harmful itself as the processes of healing 
go on in a healthy body; but there must be a vigorous condition of 
the health in order to reach such happy results. Experience has 
clearly proved that the road to health is by avoiding medicines. 

But something must take their place, and there is nothing better 
than the natural food of nature taken in a natural condition, and 
passed into the blood by the most natural of all processes; and that 
is what we present in this treatment. For this reason we have 
not met with failure. 

A half interested way of using the treatment will be of no avail. 
There can be no stage that can be called experimental. The diet 
we give is the most perfect known to science or to nature. The 
stomach is saved all irritation because it is kept out of the way 
during the treatment. The exercises or plans of getting food 
from air and water are in accord with the best hygiene in the world 
to-day. Failure therefore is utterly impossible when there is sen¬ 
sible attention given to the requirements. 

Although this method has been reserved for a collapsed stomach, 
we have given it in cases as a matter of test where there was a lack 
of appetite that would not yield to any other treatment; and the 
result was that the keenest and most wholesome appetite followed. 

Let us now pass from gland-digestion to that which takes place 
in the stomach itself. It must be understood that the stomach is 
a porous bag, constituting a membrane which is designed to admit 
fluids from the blood in great quantities and to take them out again. 
The process of digestion is simple enough. The blood flows in 
great volume around the locality, and pours nearly twenty pounds 
of its plasma or fluid into the stomach daily, although not all at 
a time. The purpose is to do what scientists call “ macerating the 
food;” that is, making it soft and very watery, so that it may be 
taken up by the blood and pass into the circulation. 

Indigestion may be due to any one or more of many causes. 
Perfect food not only prevents indigestion, but actually cures it. 
What is perfect food is not determined by the chemistry of what 


142 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 


is eaten, for one article may contain exactly what the system needs, 
and yet be in a condition to injure the stomach by its very nature. 
So many things have to be considered that it is almost impossible 
to learn what course should be pursued, unless the plan of diges¬ 
tion be made clear in its relations to the invalid rather than the 
well person. The old remark that a healthy man or woman can 
digest most anything without injury is not true. In the first place, 
every mouthful of food that is foreign to the stomach does it harm; 
and in the second place, owing to the peculiar character of that 
organ, it is not easy to know when it is injuried until the accumula¬ 
tion of abuse has aroused it to rebellion; and then it is probable that 
some other organ will show the suffering first. Many an attack 
of heart disease, many an epileptic fit, many a headache, many a 
nightmare, many a nervous depression, many a liver failure has 
been directly caused by abuse of the stomach. 

Weakness of the stomach is either a collapse of the organ or 
else a state of inflammation or congestion that renders its action 
almost useless in the digestion of food. Let us see what this col¬ 
lapse may consist of, how it originated, how the cause may be re¬ 
moved and the malady overcome. Every part of the body responds 
to the laws of use, non-use and misuse. The stomach, when prop¬ 
erly used, gathers strength and vitality, because nature so intends. 
When not used, in the sense of not giving it enough to do, it gradu¬ 
ally collapses and becomes weak. When abused it becomes ir¬ 
ritated, inflamed and congested. TTse, therefore, is its best means 
of protection; and a proper use is its best means of cure when dis¬ 
eased. Non-use is a serious thing, and leads to a shrinkage and 
lessening of its own structure, so that it may be called weak, while 
otherwise free from defect. 

This brings us to a division of stomach troubles under the 
present, in which there are really but two classes of the malady. 
The first is weakness, and the second is inflammation or congestion. 
Both are forms of indigestion. Weakness is best described as a 
loss of the normal size, action and vigor of the stomach. Inflam¬ 
mation is a soreness, tenderness and condition of irritation that re¬ 
flects abuse. 

Where inflammation is absent, which can be ascertained by 
slapping the front of the body just below the chest, the quickest 
and best cure of weak stomach is constant use with wholesome food 
not concentrated, attended by such treatment as will invite the full 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


143 


and vigorous action of the whole organ. Let us regard the stom¬ 
ach as a part of the body that has been neglected, underused and 
dwarfed. Actual examinations of the condition found after death 
in individuals, some of whom have died under circumstances that 
did not affect the vigor of the stomach, show that when that organ 
is weak it is much thinner than when it is strong; just as the 
bronchial passages in persons who are light breathers are thin and 
delicate. Use is the chief builder of any part of the body. 

In order to determine if the stomach is inflamed, try the fol¬ 
lowing test: Stand, take a deep breath and tap the stomach with 
the fingers of both hands, first in front, then at the sides, and 
finally in front with the palms of the hands. Now let all the 
breath out of the lungs, and while they are empty repeat all the 
movements with the fingers and palms, increasing their force 
little by little until they are quite vigorous. If no pain within 
the stomach is perceptible, then press in at the sides and in front 
with the wrists, kneading the flesh as deeply as you can. If there 
is inflammation present a slight pain will be felt, otherwise there 
will be no pain at all. 

Assuming that the stomach is not in a state of collapse, and that 
there is no inflammation there, then you can go on with the follow¬ 
ing treatment known as use of the stomach to give it tone and 
vigor. If either weakness, collapse or soreness is present, then 
keep to the plan already stated in this treatment until they are all 
gone. 

Under the head of use the first step is the withdrawal of indi¬ 
gestible starches. These are man’s worst enemies when under¬ 
cooked, and his best friends when well cooked. Wheat is the staff 
of life; yet it contains one of the most indigestible forms of starch, 
the white flour that is sold for bread and cake. This, when 
thoroughly softened and cooked, is very valuable; but the darker 
part of the wheat is still more important; while the two together, 
as whole wheat, are helps to each other when in the stomach. The 
outer hull, found in Graham flour, is totally indigestible and very 
injurious. There are several ways of using the wheat. The first 
and about the best is as a breakfast food, but soft wheat is prac¬ 
tically worthless even in this form. Probably the best is in the 
malted condition; for then the starch is entirely changed and it is 
digested by the weakest stomach; and even then it must be cooked 
in boiling water for fully thirty minutes. Any other breakfast 


144 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 


food, not malted, must be cooked a full hour; and no attention 
should be paid to the claims of short time on the package. Brief 
cooking of breakfast foods has hurt many a stomach, besides 
failing to alford nutrition. Bemember this: cook malted food 
thirty minutes in boiling water, and all other breakfast foods a 
full hour or more. We gave to twelve patients, all suffering from 
weak stomachs and indigestion, each twelve kinds of breakfast 
food on the market; one cooked according to the time in the di¬ 
rections ; the second, ten minutes longer; and so on, till the twelfth 
was cooked over two hours. The food that was cooked the least 
was very distressing; but a white looking flour food that was 
cooked a half hour gave great distress and had to be thrown up. It 
contained a larger proportion of white flour than the others. On 
the second, third and fourth days we changed the individuals, and 
found that the same results followed; so that the distress was not 
due to special weakness of any patient. Strange to say, the food 
that was cooked two hours was most readily digested, gave no 
trouble, and yielded the best strength. Acting on this theory we 
have found that the longer any grain is cooked, the better it is 
adapted to the human stomach. 

Wheatlet; cracked wheat, purchased in bulk; shredded wheat; 
homin}', soaked over night, cooked an hour the next morning 
and baked a few minutes to brown; com meal mush cooked two 
hours, then baked in the oven to a brown; these are the five best 
breakfast foods. The cracked wheat, the hominy and the corn 
meal are the least expensive and the most wholesome. The 
cracked wheat can be got in bulk, and any grocer who will not get it 
should be shown this page, and told that he is not honest, but 
that he is seeking to get double profit by selling the fake breakfast 
foods on the market in preference to the wholesome kinds. If he 
will not get you the cracked wheat, tell him that you will make 
terms with wholesalers in other cities who make a business of 
selling goods at wholesale on mail orders where several persons 
combine to buy a lot together. For instance, we know of five 
families who get all their groceries in a large city by combining, 
and the goods are delivered freight free in their town, more than 
two hundred miles away, and at wholesale prices at that. This 
practice is now growing everywhere. 

Try it. 

It will save you many dollars. 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


145 


The greatest of all breakfast food is this cracked wheat, but it 
has the single objection of containing the hull, though not in the 
rough state that is found in Graham flour. The latter is often 
found with not only its own share of hulls or bran, but also with 
a great proportion of such stuff taken like sweepings from the 
floors of dirty mills; and it is not in any sense a form of whole 
wheat. In the case of the cracked wheat, the long cooking takes 
away the objection to the presence of the hulls. They do no 
injury even to the tender stomach, as has been tested. The cooking 
should last for two hours, and be followed by baking to brown and 
dry it; then it should be served with cream, or with milk. 

Sugar should never be used on any breakfast foods. 

All five of the breakfast foods we have mentioned should be 
used as liked, some more than others if preferred, otherwise in turn; 
and any morning you do not wish such food, omit it altogether. 
For the cure of weak stomach, or to tone up the system that has 
indigestion, ihe breakfast food should end the morning meal. 

Avoid all kinds of breakfast foods except the five mentioned 
in the above list. The others cost more as a rule, and are not 
beneficial, especially if there is a faulty stomach. 

Bread must be depended upon for the chief diet for months, 
and the bread must be made in accordance with the demands of 
health, not of the palate or relish. Bake the bread as much 
longer than usual as it will stand it. Then trim off all the crust 
in very thin layers, not so much to get rid of the dark surfaces as of 
the greasy part. The trimmed loaf should be put away in a dry, 
cool place for a day or two; then sliced and rebaked in an oven 
until each slice is browned clear through, but no part of it should 
be burned. This is the only way in which bread can be prepared 
and be made easily and fully digestible without depriving it of 
any part of its nutritive value. Next in excellence of method is 
the long baking which our forefathers indulged in; lasting a day 
or more in a slow, steady heat. Such bread is pleasanter to the 
taste than the double bake, and is far more nutritious than any 
other form of white bread, or wheat bread. It is the staple of life 
and cannot be replaced. By actual test in every way it has been 
proved to be better for brain, blood, nerves, flesh and muscles than 
any other kind of food, except as already stated. 

A person who is troubled with weak stomach and indigestion 
should live largely upon the double bake or the long bake at each 
10 


146 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 

of the three daily meals; and we recommend the whole wheat break¬ 
fast food cooked at least one hour, or the malt food cooked at least 
thirty minutes. Then comes the question of potatoes, a food that 
is not considered best for this malady, especially when new. It 
is true that a new potato is harder to digest than one that is a 
month or more old. The true rule is this: When the potato will 
mash well it is best for weak stomachs; but mashing is not the best 
way of preparing it. If you wish to aid digestion, and at the 
same time yield strength, the long bake is the only known way of 
cooking it. While the softness may be reached in a few minutes, 
as in boiling or frying, there is another degree of softness which 
opens the microscopic cells and renders them far more digestible; 
then, beyond that, there is the cooking that converts the contents 
into a condition in which all starchy objections disappear. This 
comes of three or four hours of baking; the longer the better; and 
the partial browning of the interior without blackening the skin. 
When thus cooked, the outer or thin surface, which is about as thin 
as paper, should be scratched or scraped off, and all the rest of the 
skin chopped tine with the interior. This is eaten in a salted 
dressing of milk. Very few stomachs prefer the absence of more of 
the outer skin. The potato, thus prepared, should be eaten very 
liberally at the noon meal, until the stomach is rather stretched 
by the bulk. It must be remembered that, if the stomach does not 
receive bulk at least once a day, its weakness cannot be overcome; 
and potatoes are the very best for the purpose. A whole meal made 
of nothing but long bake potatoes, milk and salt is not only 
pleasant to a weak stomach, but is refreshing and very strengthen¬ 
ing. Thus far we have presented wheat bread, malt food, whole 
wheat food and potatoes; all specially cooked, and all designed for 
the malady under this treatment. 

One of the leading specialists in this line of practice says: 
“From observation in many cases, although the disorders of the 
stomach are various, it is beyond doubt that insufficient secretion 
is the essential cause in most of them; in so many, I am sure, that 
it may be suspected in all symptoms of dyspepsia.” When he 
speaks of “insufficient secretion” he refers to the lack of fluids that 
should pour into the stomach whenever it has food to be digested. 

One of the most valuable of the excitants of the gastric juices 
is the combination of food and saliva. Saliva alone will not 
excite gastric juice, but on the other hand will stop its work; but 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


147 


when the saliva has food on which to act the two, on reaching 
the stomach, invite the gastric juices, and the triple mixture gives 
the stomach its best condition. This fact has been brought well 
to light in the past few months by many tests, and they are open 
to all persons to make. 

The principle should be thoroughly understood and adopted. 
The speed with which nature makes her changes is a study in 
itself. Saliva in the form of spittle is not an aid to digestion, but 
rather a hindrance to it. Sometimes acid, but generally alkaline, 
it swings from the condition of empty saliva to that of a rich juice 
in combination with food. Its chemical change is instantaneous 
and surprising, as may be seen by analysis of the saliva that comes 
from gum-chewing, which is an injury to the blood, and the 
analysis of saliva after a piece of toasted bread has been well 
chewed. The latter is one of the most valuable and effective agents 
for exciting gastric juice in the stomach that is known; in fact, it 
has no equal in nature or in medicine. In a series of experiments 
we gave small squares of toast, just a mouthful each, to six persons 
at different times, when suffering from distressing attacks of indi¬ 
gestion. The direction was to “ chew and retain the toast in the 
mouth as long as possible and not swallow it until it could be held 
no longer.” In every instance the relief was immediate; and one 
woman who never could find anything to help her said, “ I seem 
like a new person.” With a fair degree of attention to other mat¬ 
ters, any man or woman who is afflicted with weak stomach or in¬ 
digestion may be as certain of a cure by this remedy alone as that 
to-morrow’s sun will rise. But we must not stop here. Let us 
make the cure complete and speedy. 

Every mouthful of food that enters the mouth must stay there 
as long as possible; it must be macerated, masticated and salivated. 
This applies to meat, bread, vegetables and everything else that 
enters the system, except mere liquid. Ho solid, however small, 
should be swallowed; all must be reduced to a fine pulp by the 
teeth, tongue and palate, all of which are constructed and intended 
for this particular purpose. Every possible shape of the teeth 
has been made by nature to cut, tear and grind the food; besides 
which, the best digesting fluid, the saliva, has been provided for the 
mouth. If there were no carelessness, no haste, at this, the begin¬ 
ning of digestion, there would be fewer cases of dyspepsia. The 
first cause of all, as we have stated, is inactivity of the stomach; 


148 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 


but all physicians who have made a special study of this one dis¬ 
ease describe such first cause to lack of secretions in the stomach; 
while one is of course the result of the other. But we have now 
to confront us the greatest of all causes, and that is the lack of 
salivation of food; and, at the expense of repeating our statements, 
will say that:— 

1. All weak stomaches are inactive. 

2 . All inflamed or sore stomachs are inactive. 

3. All dyspepsia is attended by such inactivity. 

4. All inactivity of the stomach is attended by lack of se¬ 
cretions. 

5. Saliva from the mouth is not an exciting or beneficial agent 
for the action of digestion when dropped into the stomach as saliva 
either as ordinary swallowing or in connection with the chewing of 
gum or other matter not food. 

6. Saliva as a food mixture is an entirely different agent from 
that which is not the product of mastication; for in its union with 
certain foods, especially starches, it undergoes a complete change; 
so much so, in fact, that it has been claimed that this secretion was 
expressly created for starchy food. 

7. Saliva in the form of masticated food is the first, best and 
most effective of all agents for exciting the secretions of the stom¬ 
ach, and for overcoming the maladies of indigestion, weak stomach, 
gastritis and dyspepsia in all its forms. 

8. Any starchy food dropped into the stomach unmasticated 
is an irritant to that organ, and is overcome is cases of robust 
health only by habits of the most vigorous kind; and in cases of 
weak stomach such food unmasticated and unsalivated produces 
flatulency, acidity, nervousness and anaemia or loss of blood and 
lack of growth. 

9. The rule for invalids is to use the foods already enumerated 
in this treatment, and to masticate them as thoroughly and as long 
as possible, retaining them until they cannot be held longer in the 
mouth. Digestion may occur partly or almost entirely in the 
mouth, as the glands there are made for that purpose; and there is 
no reason why food should not be turned into blood at the mouth 
and pass directly into circulation. If the question of time and con¬ 
venience is to be raised, then we do not pretend to offer any treat¬ 
ment or hope of relief. We can do nothing whatever for a person 
who says, “ I have not the time to give to so much chewing of 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


149 


my food.” Yes, it is true that most persons never use the teeth or 
saliva on bread or vegetables, but bolt them all past the teeth. If 
you have no time to use the saliva as nature intended, if you are 
too impatient to employ the teeth, why not pull the latter out and 
get ready for a hopeless era of inflamed stomach and incurable dys¬ 
pepsia? This alternative is all that remains. 

While much more remains to be presented herein in addition 
to what we have already stated, for there can be no permanent cure 
for this malady as long as the general habits of life are all wrong, 
we shall now proceed to give the diets that are believed best in the 
most modern practice. 

Foods Forbidden' in Every Case.— All seasoning except salt 
and butter. The latter must not be used in melted form, but 
must be spread cold and worked well in the food. Avoid all pep¬ 
per, vinegar, oil, mustard, spices of every kind, especially nutmeg, 
cinnamon, allspice and every known condiment. Avoid all bottled 
sauces, all dressings, all ketchup, all bottled goods, all hot stuff, all 
pickled goods, bitters, wines, liquors, all extract of malt and every¬ 
thing designed to create a false relish or appetite; especially pepsin, 
peptonized goods, stomach settlers, headache drinks, drops, pills, 
powders, soda, syrups, medicines, aids to digestion and the thou¬ 
sand patented ideas of the day. Nature got along very nicely be¬ 
fore these things were invented; and then there was no doctor, no 
drug store, no canned goods, no bottled goods, no package goods, 
and no sickness. God gave the grains, fruits, vegetables, fire and 
water and the means of making utensils; and perfect health is 
locked up in a close partnership, with these agencies of the Creators 
own design. 

The following foods are also forbidden in every case under this 
treatment: Soups, gravies and sauces of all kinds; except the plain, 
strong soups we have already suggested. All bread, pastry, cakes, 
doughnuts, muffins, biscuits, rolls and freshly made eatables of 
every kind except those already allowed or hereafter given. All 
sweets, tarts, jam, gelatine, confectionery, candy and sugar, except 
as already allowed. All raw vegetables such as cucumbers, cold- 
slaw, pickles, celery, radishes and the like. Sweet potatoes, yams, 
green corn, eggplant, tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussles 
sprouts, turnips, carrots, parsnips and the like; except the fine¬ 
grained kinds when tender and cooked for a long time and then 
strained to get all fibres out. They are best in the form of soup 


150 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 


we have described. Cured meats of every kind, including those 
deviled, smoked, dried, salted or preserved, whether fish, pork or 
other kind of meat. Crabs, shrimps, herring, lobster, salmon and 
terrapin, whether fresh or prepared. All fried foods of every kind; 
and all grease. Veal, except of good age, and then in broth; goose, 
duck, rabbit and all wild fowl. Tea, wine, beer, mineral water, 
malt extract and all drinks not hereinafter given. 

If coffee is to be taken at all it should be omitted at supper and 
taken at breakfast after the plan stated in High Regime in the 
book of Inside Membership. At noon it should be used merely to 
flavor hot milk. 

Among the best of recent treatments is that which advises 
that the stomach be washed out an hour or so before eating. This 
is done by drinking a pint of cool, but not ice-cold, distilled 
w^ater. A rest of ten minutes is advisable before each meal. Let 
the body lie down in a room where there is no light and no con¬ 
versation. This draws the nervous activity away from the brain. 
Worry, hard thinking, anxiety, defeat, discouragement, haste, rush, 
close study, rapid conversation and mental strain of any kind, will 
depress the nervous system and take its power away from the pro¬ 
cess of digestion. Constant readers of exciting novels are under 
such a mental and nervous strain that they are unable to get the 
plainest of meals digested; they are among the worst of sufferers. 

We have stated the best foods and how they are prepared; the 
best method of eating; the best way of providing for a full secretion 
of the gastric juices; the best dietary method of bringing the stom¬ 
ach into full activity; and yet it must be borne in mind that there 
must be a reason for the use of any food, a demand for it made 
by the system. At a consultation of doctors it was agreed that, if 
every man and woman who is troubled with dyspepsia could employ 
the body actively, there would be no weak stomachs and no further 
indigestion. To make the proposition a true one, with no excep¬ 
tions and no instances of occasional defects, it would also have to 
be true that the diet of such persons and their personal habits 
should not be too gross a challenge against the reasonable laws of 
nature. Laboring men and women suffer much from every kind 
of organic trouble; but there is always a cause for it in the fact that 
their food and mode of living would quickly end the career of the 
sedentary, and that they use far less judgment in caring for them¬ 
selves than in caring for their dogs, cats and horses. 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


151 


However, it is universally true that when the diet is reasonable 
and the habits are not grossly at variance with good sense, the 
people who are active, especially out of doors, never have indiges¬ 
tion ; and the best treatment, as accorded by good doctors, is exactly 
along these lines. “ My dyspeptics are indolent/ 5 says a physician. 
“ Mine won't do for themselves/ 5 says another. “ Mine expect help 
from medicines, and deem it absurd to look to nature for restora¬ 
tion ; the one meaning suffering to death; the other speedy relief. 55 
So the story goes. Now comes along a bright specialist and tells 
his patients to stop thinking of everything and get to laughing. 
Says he, “ I will, with a little fresh air and a simple diet, bring any 
victim of the worst stomach troubles to a complete recovery by 
teaching them to laugh heartily; and this is the quickest cure pos¬ 
sible. 55 Then experiments have been made to test the value of 
laughter. It is an action of the diaphragm or roof of the stomach 
cavity, and it gives the latter very vigorous vibration, causing 
the blood, the nerves and the whole system to come into the best 
tone. The effect of hearty laughter on digestion is so marvelous as 
to be almost classed among the miracles of nature. Yet its pro¬ 
cess is very simple. 

Outdoor life is of the highest value; but it must be a life that 
lives in and uses the air; not one that is part of the light and little 
of the atmosphere. There are three prominent methods of respira¬ 
tion : that of the chest, that of the diaphragm and that of the ab¬ 
dominal action. The last has been called by the name of the 
action employed. In the art of voice training it is not the best, 
and is useful there only as a means of inviting pliability and flex¬ 
ibility of the muscles involved in the most artistic methods of 
respiration. But in seeking to give health to all the organic life 
within the body, no surer, quicker and more permanent means 
could be employed than that of abdominal breathing. 

It is acquired best by lying down after a meal and taking the 
easiest breath possible, -whether long or short, allowing the stomach 
to rise as you inhale. Then press the hands upon the abdomen 
and lower it as you breathe out. After a while you should be able 
to distend or stretch the abdomen on every inhalation, and depress 
or contract it on every exhalation. When this can be done, you 
will find that you are reversing the ordinary habits of breathing; 
for there is no doubt that you contract the chest on the outgoing 
breath. This you can prove by saying “ Far 55 in a full whisper, 


15 2 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 


emptying the lungs instantly. Watch any other person do the 
same before calling attention to abdominal contraction. 

The next step is to learn to contract the abdomen on each ex¬ 
halation and expand it on each inhalation while standing; then 
while walking; and the final step is to learn to make the action 
each way very full and complete. This means chiefly to establish 
as much range or extent of movement of the abdominal wall as you 
can between the contraction while breathing out and the expansion 
while breathing in. This is very important. On the first day or 
two of the trials there should not be much out of the ordinary if 
the effect is to make you dizzy, as is quite usual. Dizziness means 
that your lungs are weak and of very limited use, and the early 
exercise taxes the circulation of the blood and brings a faint pres¬ 
sure to bear upon the brain. Day by day all these signs will dis¬ 
appear as the lungs grow active. Then must come the grand 
struggle to bring all the organic life of the body into splendid 
health; and this part of the battle is won when you can take a 
very long, deep, silent breath and stretch the abdomen, and follow 
it by a long outgoing exhalation while contracting the abdomen. 
The difference between the two positions establishes range, and the 
longer the range the better the health of the stomach. Keep the 
clothing loose. If the muscles are stiff, it will take from three to 
seven days to start abdominal breathing. 

Now let us apply this excellent treatment to a weak stomach. 
Having made up your mind to follow all the directions given here¬ 
in, from the first page to the last, as to food, mastication and every¬ 
thing, you should, after a rest of ten minutes following a meal, go 
to the open window or out into the air and there practice abdominal 
breathing in full range for fifteen minutes or more, the longer the 
better, if you do not catch cold. Keep this up three times a day 
and note the rapid strengthening of the organs of digestion. 

SPECIAL HELPS IN ORDINARY INDIGESTION. 

1. When some particular meal or food has refused to leave the 
stomach, if there is no other complication, the use of a little salt 
will prove effective. Take a third of a teaspoonful of salt, not 
heaped, and mix it in two tablespoonfuls of ice water, then swallow 
it in half-teaspoonful doses as fast as possible, and the food will 
soon be acted upon by the gastric juices. If relief is not obtained 
repeat the dose once or twice more. 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


153 


2. When there is an ordinary case of flatulence, or wind on the 
stomach, or colic, take a tablespoonful of soda mint in three 
tablespoonfuls of ice water, sipping it slowly, and relief will be 
very speedy. A young child may be given half this quantity. 

3. When you have eaten cake, pastry, fried stuff, fresh bread, 
pancakes, or baking powder products and distress follows, take two 
tablespoonfuls of castor oil in a small glass, drinking the same all 
at once, and follow with a chocolate cream drop, or a piece of pure 
chocolate, so as to keep the taste of the oil from the mouth. This 
cleans out the stomach and substitutes a kind of nutritive oil in 
place of the hurtful foods. No person should ever hesitate to take 
castor oil when there is a likelihood of the digestive tract being 
clogged. Do not take some mild form of the oil, but get the old- 
fashioned castor oil. It is as useful in cases of dysentery as of the 
opposite trouble; but no one can secure freedom from constipation 
and kindred maladies by this alone. In other treatments the steps 
to be taken are fully set forth. Castor oil is like a broom, it drives 
out the conditions that cause dysentery and the conditions that 
cause constipation; but its use is incidental only to other methods 
to be pursued. 

4. When the liver is inactive there is no better aid than lifting 
the arms high over the head and stretching. Eepeat for ten 
minutes. 

One underlying principle must be kept in mind, and it is this: 
The stomach must be treated as a delicate organ that will not 
stand abuse or bad company. 

By abuse we mean putting into it things that are foreign to it, 
such as water with food; saliva without food; floods of cold liquid 
such as ice water, etc., which contract the stomach and cause it 
to send out its contents before they can be digested; iced tea, or any 
tea, hot or cold, for the tannin ruins the gastric juice and weakens 
the walls of the stomach; stimulants of any kind; imitation coffee, 
such as is made from cereals, etc.; fancy summer drinks; gas 
drinks, such as soda water, charged water, mineral waters, sweetened 
drinks, and many other enemies of digestion. All these are hurtful 
and keep back all progress towmrds a cure. They will block the 
efforts of the doctor as well as of nature. 

Bad company means the presence of foul matter in, around and 
below the stomach. In order for the contents of the latter to move 
out freely and in the best manner for the health, it must be true that 


154 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 


no interference is to be permitted. Sluggish liver and clogged 
alimentary canal are the worst of bad company. The remedy is in 
the use of the first two Treatments, Anti-Death and Constipation. 

But the work of securing the proper remedy is not to be confined 
to the body as an interior form of life. All the treatments ever 
given, all the skill of the best expert physicians, all the medicines 
of the world that might otherwise prove of value will avail noth¬ 
ing if the habits of life are sedentary. Let this fact be well 
understood. But do not take the opposite extreme and plunge into 
too much physical activity, for a cure cannot be had by revolutions. 
Whatever are your present habits must be maintained as closely as 
possible, while a quiet and graded change for the better is under way. 
It is too late to make up for lost time by overdoing. 

It used to be an old rule that a-person should rest after eating 
a heavy meal; and the case was cited of the habits of animals who 
went to sleep after eating. Animals are of two kinds: useful and 
useless. The useful animals are those who actually work, like the 
horse, the ox, the cow, the camel, etc., and the helpful dog. If 
the horse is to do a hard day’s work he is fed accordingly, and is 
not allowed to sleep between the meal and the work; although he 
is not given his hardest task within the first hour after eating. 
Sleep after a meal would destroy his usefulness right away. 

On the other hand, very hard work after eating would prevent 
digestion. These laws seem to conflict, but the ordinary mind 
will grasp the difference. Let us sum them up: 

1. Sleep or rest after a meal retards digestion in ordinary cases, 
but does not prevent it. 

2. In cases of emaciation or exhaustion, sleep or rest after a 
meal will repair waste to some extent, but not as well as gentle 
activity. 

3. Sleep or rest after a meal will make the mind and muscles 
sluggish. 

4. Hard, muscular work after a meal will retard digestion, and 
very hard work will stop it entirely. 

5. The brain can be taught to do its best work directly after 
eating. 

6. Concentrated, worrying thought after a meal will stop diges¬ 
tion, the same as it will during a meal. 

7. Gentle activity for one hour after sating is necessary for the 
best digestion, 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


155 


8. When a heavy meal has been eaten the liver refuses to work, 
and toxins arise from the food. 

9. The liver begins to work as soon as the body is active. Very 
heavy meals require special kinds of activity to digest them; and 
these will be spoken of later. 

Herein we offer suggestions that are necessary in order to bring 
the digestive functions up to their best work. 

After the breakfast has been eaten there should be no hurry, no 
haste, no hard strain upon the body and no excitement whatever. 
Some persons eat in a hurry and depart from the house in a hurry. 
Some walk fast to a place of business, or to get a car, this is wrong. 
Rather than have to hurry, the time of rising should be made 
earlier. Get up seventy-five to ninety minutes sooner if need be. 

A breakfast can be eaten in twenty minutes. We do not see 
how it can be extended beyond a half-hour, unless you are well 
and can digest most. everything that is allowed in our lists. A 
dyspeptic must take a limited line of foods, and these will not 
require much time at the table. 

What kind of exercise to take or how to keep active for an 
hour after eating is a problem in many cases; but the difficulty 
cannot remove the necessity of the law. Most persons go long 
distances to places of employment, and they are compelled to ride. 
We recommend that they walk part of the way, and take the car 
later on, starting soon enough to allow for the extra time con¬ 
sumed. 

To go out driving after a meal is excellent, if you walk or exer¬ 
cise on the feet for a half-hour before you go, which would be the 
first half hour after the meal. If your place of employment or 
business is not more than two miles away, you should walk all of 
the distance after you begin to get stronger; and a part of it at the 
very first. Rather than get tired after eating it is better to under¬ 
do in all things. Over-exertion is hurtful to any delicate stomach. 

If a persan has a sound stomach and perfect digestion, the use 
of the wheel for an hour or two each day is a wholesome exercise. 
In the case of indigestion, a half-hour of very slow riding varied 
with a little walking may follow a meal. This would be an hour 
and a half daily on the bicycle for the invalid, which is sufficient. 
It is beneficial, but not so much so as a quiet walk. 

Plunging into exercise of any kind, when one is not used to it, 
is always dangerous. A person who is past forty-five should not 


156 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 

change any habit very much—and, if not inured to long walks or 
hard muscular action, these should be avoided. It is a common 
advice that is given by physicians to patients, to take exercise. 
But people in advanced years who are not accustomed to exercise 
must approach it very gradually. The vital system will not endure 
the strain, and the valves of the heart are quickly put out of order, 
never to get in again. 

The gentle activity of the body makes quiet demands upon the 
stomach, and that organ soon responds. The digestive juices flow 
readily into the food and maceration, absorption and expulsion 
take place quite normally. The nutrition that goes out is assim¬ 
ilated in the structure of the body, and that is best of all for the 
health of the stomach. Non-assimilation throws them back upon 
the digestive tract to annoy and poison the organs, and the stomach 
is the first to suffer. 

Those who work and remain indoors should avoid much sitting 
after each meal. They can go out of doors for a few minutes, 
walk or exercise; and they can do much of their work near an 
open window. We do not request any person to stand on the 
feet an hour, nor even five minutes at a time, if they are not used 
to it. Let them stand a minute or two, and then sit or lie down. 
For an invalid who is not sick enough to go to bed, but who is 
dressed, it is well to vary the attitudes. A few minutes of stand¬ 
ing, followed by a minute or two of sitting, followed by a few 
minutes of walking about in or out of doors, followed by a minute 
or two of reclining in the hygienic lying position, will make a 
round of change that is beneficial, and that will avoid the vicious 
habits of sitting too long at a time. 

All persons whose duties require them to sit should try to vary 
the attitude every few minutes. Business men can stand and talk 
with a much clearer head than when sitting. Clerks who write 
can find many minutes when the writing can be done standing. 
The old-fashioned high desk would be a blessing. It could be 
accompanied by a high stool and a low chair, which would allow a 
variety of attitudes. 

A physician told us that a business man, who was a patient of 
his, was troubled with constipation that would not yield to any 
medicine; and, as a last resort, he told him to get a high desk in 
his office, and stand up to it when writing; with the variation of 
sitting every few minutes in an easy-chair if he became tired. 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


157 


The constipation was completely cured. The doctor explained it 
on the ground that the standing attitude gave activity to the intes¬ 
tines, while sitting made them very sluggish and poisonous to the 
kidneys, the liver and the stomach. We found out afterwards 
that the man had changed his diet to suit a free action of the 
bowels, and had practiced this better method of eating for four 
months without getting relief. 

What we have said of the use of the hour after breakfast will 
apply as well to the hour after the noon meal and the hour after 
the evening meal. These three hours are to be devoted to gentle 
activity directly after eating, so that there may be a demand made 
on the stomach for its contents and their nutrition. The third 
hour of the day, or that which follows the supper, should be the 
quietest of all. Slow walking with frequent rests is recommended, 
or some other method of passing the time, while the food is in the 
stomach. 

It may be objected that all this is a waste of time; but what shall 
be said of the years that may be spent in the graveyard when no 
calendars are issued and months are not marked off by the occu¬ 
pants? It is better to waste a little time and remain on earth. 

It is a law of nature that sleep or rest after eating produces a 
sluggish action of the stomach, liver and other functions. The 
liver especially gets in a dead state when the whole body rests, and 
awakens with its activity. 

It is also a law of nature that the skin gives out poisons when 
its pores are free and active; that lack of constant cleanliness 
gums up the pores, and that the poisons of the body are thus 
thrown back upon the stomach and other organs, thereby leading 
to gastritis or stomach catarrh. 

Now, who is there so obtuse as not to see the necessity of pre¬ 
paring the whole body for the conditions that are required to free 
the stomach of its catarrhal malady; for dyspepsia and all disorders 
of this organ are due to a clogging that gives rise to membranous 
inflammation or catarrh ? Every catarrh is the result of the toxins 
that accumulate in the body. 

Having appealed to your good sense, and knowing that you will 
adopt the measures that we have prescribed for your cure, we will 
now proceed to revive a practice that was employed in the era of 
the highest civilization in ancient times. The old Greeks and 
Romans delved down into the depths of nature and discovered 


158 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 

many a law that held a value far beyond anything in use to-day. 
The so-called “ lost arts 99 are examples of a skill that once existed, 
and that has since been buried in the ruins of the centuries. 

Philosophers have learned that the quick, rhythmic action of the 
diaphragm causes the blood to flow with more determined energy 
to the stomach, heart, lungs, liver and intestines. There is no 
other organ in the body that is endowed with this marvelous power. 

During the process of normal breathing^ the descending, expand¬ 
ing action of the diaphragm is important. In coughing the as¬ 
cending, contracting action is the only characteristic; and it is 
slower than in weeping, sobbing or crying. All three of these lach¬ 
rymose events are regulated by the speed of the diaphragm, which 
is much faster than in coughing; while coughing is faster than 
breathing. Yet one organ does the work. It is this wonderful 
diaphragm which is the floor of the lungs and the roof of the ab¬ 
domen. 

Let its speed increase beyond that of crying and the result is 
laughter. Thus, when the diaphragm moves up and down at a 
certain speed, the sensation of sobbing or weeping ensues. In¬ 
crease the speed a little and crying follows. Now increase it a 
little more and the result is laughing. When a person hides the 
face while crying or laughing, it is impossible for another to tell 
what is going on, whether it is laughter or crying; yet the speed 
of the diaphragm separates one from another by a natural law. 

Coughing is much slower. Hiccoughs are even slower than 
coughing, and the person afflicted with them gives the convulsive 
action on every fourth breath at first; and this in normal breathing 
is known as the “ rhythmic fourth , 99 for it is true that three ordin¬ 
ary respirations are followed by a fourth that is deeper and heav¬ 
ier. The cure of hiccoughs is to inhale and try not to exhale. 
This malady is attended by the raised position of the diaphragm, 
which refuses to descend. As soon as a deep breath is taken it 
has to go down, and the convulsive movements gradually subside. 

Sighing is the long holding of the breath during a thought that 
claims the attention, and then the collapse or letting out of the 
air all at once. 

Worrying and anxiety about some event that gives rise to what 
is commonly known as stage fright holds the diaphragm quite low, 
and keeps its movements so close to the stomach and abdominal 
contents that they are affected by it. This is not the kind of worry 


FAULTY STOMACH. 


159 


that is painful or sorrowful; but the kind that is attended by 
timidity. 

This pressure of the diaphragm downward upon the stomach 
and abdomen almost always leads to looseness of the bowels and 
sometimes to diarrhoea. It is explained by natural principles. 

The act of coughing is helpful to the digestion, circulation and 
respiration of a patient,—and is so provided by nature to keep 
up these functions when the weakness of the invalid would other¬ 
wise be too great, and, while coughing is evidence of abnormal 
health, its action maintains life through crises that would other¬ 
wise be attended by a sudden collapse. Despite all efforts to stop 
coughing nature keeps it going until the cause is removed. 

Weeping is also beneficial. Many persons feel grief so keenly 
that they cannot cry; during which time the functions of life 
are almost suspended. It is a matter of common knowledge that 
the act of weeping starts these functions again, and the stomach 
takes up its work once more. Some explain the phenomenon by 
the theory that the flow of tears is a relief; but the tears do not 
produce the result. If they are all that come, the relief is very 
slight. It is the heaving of the diaphragm against the heart and 
lungs as it rises, and against the stomach and liver as it falls, with 
all the attendant vibration of the viscera, that gives renewed health. 
The mind clears, the lungs fill, the heart leaps, the vital organs of 
the lower range are at work and things take on brighter hues. 

This wonderful diaphragm exceeds in importance all the other 
organs of the body. All are necessary, but this is the central power. 
It responds, like an aspen leaf in a summer zephyr, to every slight 
mood of the mind or heart, and it keeps pace with the stronger 
passions. It is an organ that has never been fully understood; yet 
enough was known of its relation to health even two thousand 
years ago to employ it as a means of cure. When its close asso¬ 
ciation with the health of the body is fully understood, it will again 
be employed as a valuable assistant in establishing good health. 
Why? 

Because the diaphragm is capable of a large variety of action 
that serves to excite the flow of gastric juice into the stomach, and 
the increased circulation of the blood around the stomach and 
intestines. Indigestion begins in the sluggishness of these organs. 

The old Greeks and Romans made use of this same principle in 
a different way. They recognized the service of the diaphragm as 


160 SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER SIX. 

one of the most effective agents of digestion, because it increased 
the flow of gastric juice in the stomach, and impelled the blood in 
stronger currents around the intestines and stomach, all of which 
must of necessity help to carry on the process of digestion. To 
them laughter was a boon when people could laugh; but they found 
another way of using the diaphragm that did not depend on the 
condition of the feelings at the time. They had many ways 
of using this organ in a hygienic service, and they began by em¬ 
ploying the voice with it, for this compels it to work under a 
scientific plan. What we have embodied here is founded upon those 
old methods, and upon uses which have been uniformly success¬ 
ful in the last twenty years. 

Every person can easily prove these facts. 

We do not speak without authority, for we have been engaged 
in tests of this kind in our university work at Washington, D. C., 
for more than half a generation. During that time we have had 
many people come to us to learn the arts of expression as a means 
of health; and we know of nothing that can be so useful and so 
practical as such training. Many consumptives have taken up the 
study of expression in all its branches for the saving of their lives; 
and failure is rare indeed. 

The study of vocal range is the beginning of all good methods 
of training. 

When range is mastered you will find that you have acquired a 
full octave below your former lowest note, unless you have pre¬ 
viously developed it; and in this octave of the lower half of the 
voice you will get the hygienic uses of the diaphragm. Properly 
speaking, as under the German method, the voice has three realms; 
the highest is called for convenience the head register; the middle 
is called the throat register and the lowest is the chest register. 

A hygienic law comes into play at this place, and it is this: 
One register only is hygienic, and that is the chest or lowest regis¬ 
ter. The reasons are many, and we cannot stop to give them 
here; but it is sufficient to say that the chest register is the only 
part of the range that involves strong or impulsive vibrations of 
the diaphragm. The fewer vocal waves there are the stronger will 
be the movement of the organ of breathing. Low register vibra¬ 
tions are slow and few as compared with those of the higher notes. 
Voice and health are companions. Silence and sickness are their 
opposites. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLTJB 

Special •Treatment 

NUMBER "7 



We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 

This Treatment is private. It is rented to the Inside Member 
to whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The member has no right to loan this mono¬ 
graph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or to come 
into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the same. 
This rule does not forbid the use of the Treatment by the member in 
behalf of any child or aged person who is actually in the member’s 
household; but all others must become Inside Members of the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help of this Treat¬ 
ment. To become such members will not cost anything, as may be 
seen by consulting the final pages of the book of Inside Member¬ 
ship, if the steps are taken as there directed. 

11 061 ) 





162 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 


THE PROTECTION OF THE LUNGS. 

There has probably been no age in the history of the world from 
the period of primitive or pre-historic man down to the present 
era in which consumption has not been the chief enemy of the body. 

Fifty years ago, when it was thought that science had made 
great strides in the battle for safety, the death rate was exceedingly 
large. To-day the death rate is much less than it was then, but 
yet it remains true that one person in every ten dies of this malady, 
taking all deaths from birth to old age; and, between the ages 
of twenty and thirty, three persons in every ten who die fall 
victims of this great, white plague. 

These facts are alarming. 

It is claimed that consumption is curable for the reason that it 
is the result of the spitting habit. If the latter habit could be 
stopped, then it might be said that the disease is preventable. But 
this fact does not make it curable. Pins save lives if they are 
not swallowed. If every person who spits in places where others 
have to go would omit this fault, then they, too, would save lives; 
or if the people who go where others spit would not go there, then 
they would save their lives. This kind of argument, while founded 
upon solid premises and conclusions, does not meet present con¬ 
ditions, and will not avail those who are fighting to get rid of the 
results of this universal carelessness. 

The only value to the patient in knowing how the disease was 
caught is in guiding him into the exercise of greater caution as 
to further risks, and to make him careful not to involve others 
in the dangers that his own spitting may bring to them. 

If we could look into the long past and sum up the origin of 
consumption, we would in all probability find it due to decree of 
nature that each kind of toxin in the body must have its kind of 
bacteria to devour the poison. We would find that, as long as 
there is the toxin on which the germs of consumption feed, there 
would be the germs to feed upon it, whether they were spit out 
by some preceding victim or not. This kind of toxin will not 
support the hungry germs of smallpox, or diphtheria, or typhoid, 
or any other bacteria, except those that were created to eat up and 
get rid of the special toxin suited to the disease of consumption. 


WEAK DUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


163 


Each toxin is food for its kind of bacteria. The very first case of 
tuberculosis was not caught from exposure to the spittle of some 
prior victim, for there was none prior to the first. 

Yet while all this is true, it is likewise the fact that there 
must be an excess of the bacteria in order to overwhelm the body, 
or the lungs where the disease is generally seated. Without ex¬ 
posure to the spittings of others, the lungs of almost every man, 
woman and child carry the germs, but in a minority as to numbers 
and influence. It is certain that you, who read these pages, have 
countless millions of germs of consumption in your lungs at this 
moment. Post mortems show this presence in nearly all in¬ 
stances. Lungs have carried the first stages of the disease, then 
have risen in vitality to a degree sufficient to overthrow them, and 
the parts have healed up. You may have had a dozen attacks of 
tuberculosis and have been able to silently ward off the power of 
the germs until your body was in a state of health that gave the 
enemies no hold on its tissue. This is the story that is being 
enacted in nearly every body to-day, and that has been the history 
of the past in almost all lives. 

These facts are of the highest importance in enabling you to 
grasp the meaning of the proper methods of cure. 

The recognized authorities on the subject of this disease tell 
the world that if the habit of spitting were to be stopped there 
would be no case of consumption. While this is mere theory and is 
not in accord with the known laws of nature, it is good advice to 
the public, and should have its weight. It is true that the spittle 
of the consumptive contains the germs by millions. It is true 
that the dresses of women drag some of these germs home into 
the rooms where the hot air will give them a chance to float and 
be inhaled into the lungs, and there add to the numbers already in 
the body of the victim. But it is not true that the germs cannot be 
originated in the body by the toxins of the blood. It is not true 
that the victim-elect of this malady is free from all germs prior 
to the time when this infection from spittle is conveyed to him. 
On the other hand he has already been attacked and invaded by 
the white plague, and the additional germs only serve as rein¬ 
forcements of the enemy. 

It is only a question as to which side has the greater power. 
If the germs of tuberculosis are able to fight themselves into a 
rapid increase of numbers, then the lungs will fall little by little 


164 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 


until they are no longer able to do their work of purifying the 
blood, and death is the result. If, on the other hand, the germs 
are held at bay by the vitality of the blood, then the fags or white 
corpuscles will devour them in numbers, and the breath will kill 
others, while the circulating blood will drive them out of the 
lungs, until the wound made by their invasion is healed and the 
war is ended for the present. In the meantime it is wise not 
to incur further exposure to the contagion. 

Experiments show that there are two great enemies of con¬ 
sumption, and they are air and sunshine. You will at once say 
that air and sunshine cannot be introduced into the lungs, and 
there meet and overcome the germs that are doing their work. 
Perhaps you are wrong. 

Humanity is not alone the sufferer from this evil. Among 
cattle it has been found that the same laws are at work, both for 
the incurring of the disease and its cure, as among human beings. 
The yards of barns where infected cattle are kept are found to 
contain the germs. Measures are taken to kill the bacteria by 
the use of antiseptics, and they are serviceable; but wherever the 
sun and air are allowed to play on the contents of the yard the 
germs die very quickly. 

The spittle gathered up and examined from that found on the 
sidewalks where men and women have passed shows the pres¬ 
ence of the germs of consumption. In some cities it is regularly 
taken care of and disinfected. But wherever the sun and moving 
air combine in their influence over these germs not one escapes. 
Colonies of tuberculosis germs, J^ept in the dark and subjected 
to the strongest currents of pure air, weaken in numbers, but manage 
to survive; and those that are subjected to the sunshine, but kept 
indoors free from the action of the air in motion die in numbers, 
but are not altogether destroyed; but there is not the slightest 
possibility for the survival of even one germ when these two in¬ 
fluences are combined. 

This principle was put into effect by farmers not long ago. The 
location of the barns where cows were kept favored the shade 
rather than the sun and the closeness of protecting walls rather 
than moving winds. In such locations tuberculosis was prevalent. 
Disinfectants had their value and did good work, but the disease 
still lingered. The barns were rearranged so that the cow~s were 
given more outdoor life and their yards were open to the moving 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


165 


winds, while the sun was allowed to enter freely at all times when 
shining at all. The result was the complete destruction of the 
germs, and the recovery of every cow. Air at night, and air and 
sunshine by day, were the only factors except the greater attention 
to habits of cleanliness on every hand. 

Long ago the sensible part of the medical profession gave up the 
use of medicines for the treatment of consumption. On the face 
of the globe to-day there is not one man who has any substantial 
knowdedge of the nature of this disease who advocates the taking 
of any drugs or medicines for the cure of consumption. Remem¬ 
ber this fact when you read the glowing promises of the advertis¬ 
ing charlatan who promises you relief from the inroads of the 
malady. There are hundreds of thousands of great minds and 
great hearts among the educated medical profession, and not one 
of them prescribes internal or external treatments that require the 
taking of medicines or other stuff, or the use of appliances or 
gases, or other things, except such as are set forth in this treatise. 

We stated twenty-five years ago that the time would come when 
the whole world would wake up to the knowledge that the remedy 
was to be found in the use of nature’s direct laws, and nowhere 
else; and this prediction has been more than amply verified, for 
there are organized sanitoriums all over Christendom that are now 
putting into practice the very laws that we then maintained as 
necessary to the cure of the disease. What we said then has 
come to pass in this one line of treatment; and what we have 
all along declared in other methods of cure as the only proper 
plan to be pursued will be realized as time goes on. Ralstonism 
pleads for nature as against artifice; for the employment of 
natural laws as against the use of medicines, where the latter can 
be avoided. 

If you wish to be cured of consumption, and it is safe to say 
that you have it if your lungs are weak, for it is always present 
when the lungs are of low vitality, you should resolve never to 
take drugs or medicines or anything that can be termed a “ cure ” 
if it has to be applied internally or externally. You should also 
resolve never to make use of gases, or breathing-vapors, or electric 
apparatus, or anything that is advertised as a remedy for weak 
lungs or consumption. Do not be led into such error. Having 
made up your mind to be sensible, the next thing to do is to get 
at the true laws of life as they relate to this malady. 


166 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 


The oxygen in the air is one of the natural enemies of the 
germs of consumption. But it alone is powerless. It should be 
taken, not in separate form, but as air in the proportion assigned 
by the Creator. Between still air and moving air there is an 
enormous difference. The latter is air alive, and the former is 
air dead. Air dies very soon after it comes to a still condition. 
The winds blow pure air, and change the most unwholesome at¬ 
mosphere into healing balm in a few minutes, just as the foulest 
water is made clean and pure by its own motion continued for a 
while. All the air from the sewers of a town, collected in a place 
of reception a few rods away, showed contamination; but when 
let go to flow on for miles they showed a constant gain in the return 
to purity, and by their own action alone, without intermingling 
with other water and without being filtered. A thirsty army came 
upon a pool of bad-smelling, stagnant water, which they could not 
drink, even to alleviate their suffering. They carried the water 
to a height of fifty feet and allowed it to fall through the air and 
sunshine for hours, and at length it became fit to drink. 

Air, by its activity, purifies itself and takes on a life and vitality 
that it does not hold when in a quiet state. The many sanitariums 
that are helping consumptives to get well are doing a noble work; 
but they have one thing yet to learn, and then their cures will be 
sooner obtained and better in their effects. They teach and preach 
life in the open air; this is right; but they do not lay sufficient 
stress upon moving air or active air. Let them take this one 
step further and their systems will be perfect as far as the use of air 
is concerned. 

It is perhaps to be said that moving air is not always obtainable. 
No, it cannot be had on still days; but there are few really still 
days in the year. The patients are sheltered, and that is right. 
They are chilly and feel exposure, but on sunny, warm days, when 
the wind is from the south, or southwest, why shelter them, either 
in winter or summer? The windiest days in winter, or in any 
other time of the year, furnish moving air if the breeze is from 
the cold corners, as from the east, the north, or the west, and all 
that is necessary is to see that the body does not get chilled by 
direct exposure. But greater closeness to the air is needed. A 
person can sit near to a blowing current and not be in it. For 
example, we saw patients at a sanitarium who were out of doors, 
but were hidden in a close corner where neither sun nor air got much 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


167 


chance at them, and their progress was unsatisfactory. We sug¬ 
gested that they sit out in the open parts of the piazza, not in 
the blowing wind, but as near to it as they could get, so that they 
should breathe the moving air. This they did, and soon learned to 
enjoy the active atmosphere. Later on we saw them sitting in 
the strong currents, and they grew better very fast. 

The demand to-day is more outdoor air. 

The need to-day is more outdoor air that is actively in motion. 

Let this distinction be kept in mind at all times, for much will 
depend on it. We state the laws of nature with the assurance 
that they will be obeyed, for all the methods now in use throughout 
the civilized world for the cure of consumption are those that we 
taught years ago, and long before they were adopted by physicians 
and sanitariums. We have studied the subject more thoroughly 
than any other authority on consumption, and have made more 
tests in experiments than any other agency for the cure of this 
malady. Our success has been the reward of efforts in the right 
direction. 

Another point should be cleared up at this stage of the treatise. 
Air alone is not sufficient to cure consumption; other things are 
required, and sunshine is one of them. The claim was thoroughly 
set forth in our books many years ago, and these books are on 
record in the libraries of the world, showing by their dates that 
they preceded the present universal practice of treating the patient 
with outdoor air and sunshine. 

But there are two kinds of sunshine. One is vitalizing and the 
other is debilitating. The sanitariums teach only sunshine in 
this part of their work; that is, they do not distinguish between 
the kinds of sunlight they prescribe. In fact they do not think 
there are two kinds. 

Our attention was years ago called to the matter by the fact 
that some persons grew weaker in the sun, while others grew 
stronger. It was invariably found that the former patients had 
spent too much time in the kind of sunshine that debilitates, 
while the latter had been accustomed to the kind that strengthens. 
In the hot months the same sun that gives life in winter will 
bring stroke and death in summer. Plants, grass, trees and life 
generally droop beneath the weakening rays of a vertical sun. 
The greenhouse is shaded in summer against the high heat and 
light, but invites the low, slanting rays of the early morning. All 


168 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 

the year round the first four hours of the day’s sun afford life 
and benefit. In the cool months all the hours of the day from 
morning till night are attended by slanting rays. In winter the 
mid-day sun is as low as the six o’clock sun of a June morning. It is 
these slanting rays that are beneficial. The overhead rays are 
deadly and weakening. The time that the sun gives out its best 
influences is in the first four hours from the eastern horizon. 
Let this law be put into use, and the results will follow that must 
be gratifying. 

In April, May, June, July, August and September it is well 
for the patients to be in the open, moving air, but not in the direct 
rays of the sun. Try this difference in the use of the law of sun¬ 
light and note the results. In these months let all the slanting rays 
of the sun shine directly into the faces of the patient. Let them 
face the light, especially in the first hours of the morning. Let 
the sun come to them and around them. In the other six months 
it is better for the sun to be given them all the day long, as there 
are no vertical rays then. 

In order to secure the best vitality, we have used a triple mirror 
which can be easily rigged and put into service at a very slight 
expense. It is made of three long mirrors about six feet high and 
two feet wide, making six feet in width and the same in height. 
Being in three parts, they can be arranged to form almost a semi¬ 
circle at the back of the patient. They are placed so as to face 
the sun, and the patient sits at their focus in front of them. The 
result is that the sun shines directly into the patient’s face from 
the front, and is reflected from the back and sides. A true focus 
is not needed, nor is it possible, but it is approached in a general 
sense. The only purpose is to get more sunlight on the body, on 
the back, the right, the left and in front; and this method secures 
that desired end. 

The effect is marvelous. The triple mirror has not been in¬ 
troduced as yet into any sanitarium of all the thousands now in 
operation; but you may mark our prediction that it will be uni¬ 
versally employed, except where there is not room enough to allow 
its use. It does require a few more feet of floor room, and this 
is not available at a crowded sanitarium. If you can ’make for 
yourself an outdoor platform, and live upon it in the open, moving 
air, and in the sunshine during the hours stated, aided by the 
triple-mirror, you will have gone a long way towards recovery. 


WEAK EUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


169 


These directions are of the utmost importance. 

They do not exclude any part of the prevailing treatment now 
in vogue all over the world; but they vary the details in particulars 
that are of immense importance if cures are sought. 

The kind of air and its activity must be secured. 

The kind of sunlight is important. The time of day in the 
various months is important. That sunshine is one of the greatest 
curative agents is conceded by all authorities. The more sunshine 
of the healing kind that can be got the more valuable will it be. 
The triple mirror affords the most complete of all the plans to 
flood the body with the rays of the sun, for the right, left and back 
reflections are known to have great influence. All light is sun¬ 
light, even if it is supposedly artificial. For this reason the use 
of strings of electric lights at night, and on stormy days when out¬ 
door life is not attainable, has given proof of additional value. 

Electricity applied to the body has not proved of importance, 
for the currents have not reached the lungs. On the other hand 
the air that is inhaled bears with it the influences that play upon 
its bulk. It is changed and vitalized by light. The lungs absorb 
what the air carries into them. The whole body is full of pores, 
and these get some value from the atmosphere in which the body is 
bathed. When that medium is charged with a flood of light, the 
body is bathed in it, and is given the advantage of its influences. 
This explains why the person who lives for hours daily in sun-lit 
air gets vitality from it. There are some proofs that rooms that 
are made intensely bright with electricity, which takes out no 
oxygen as do other forms of artificial light, are helpful to con¬ 
sumptives when they cannot get the outdoor sunshine. But the 
latter is a thousand times better, and the triple mirror exceeds in 
value the electric rooms in the proportion of more than a hundred 
to one. Therefore the triple mirrors should be universally used. 
They reflect the direct rays of the sun, and concentrate them on 
the patient. 

All these points are new to the systems now in vogue, and will do 
much toward hastening the glorious day when consumption will 
be completely vanquished nevermore to take our loved ones from 
us ere their natural time. 

The consumptive must make a special study and practice of 
living in the fresh air night and day. It will require the harden¬ 
ing of the sick body to the custom; but it can be done, as it has 


170 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER S E V E N . 

been done many thousands of times, and recovery has resulted. The 
bed-room must be a room of fresh air. Not by sudden acquisition 
of new habits, but by a slow process of hardening that will not 
prove dangerous, can this end be achieved. The open window on 
all nights in the year, on pleasant and on stormy nights, in rain, 
snow and sleet, the windows must be open, not one, but as many 
as possible. This does not mean that the snow, the rain or the 
sleet shall be admitted. They are bound to be dangerous, and 
should be kept out at all hazards. But the air in which they fall 
is to be admitted, and this can be done by devices placed at the 
windows that will keep out the dangers. In many cases the fire 
is kept hot all night while the wind is allowed to blow over the 
bed, and the patient has gained by it. These things seem like tak¬ 
ing the matter of fresh air to extremes, but we are not going 
farther than is the custom in the successful sanitariums of the 
world. 

Warm rooms and dry air favor the consumptive when the weather 
is very damp. Dampness is to be avoided as much as possible. 
But warmth is not sought in the temperature of the air itself. 
The body must be kept warm by ingenious devices to clothe it; and 
then the lower the temperature in winter the better it will be for 
the patient. Thirty degrees below zero in the mountains may bring 
cures just as quickly as seventy degrees above zero will effect them. 
The winter garments for the outer clothing of the body include 
“pontiacs,” woolen caps that come over the ears, foot-ball guards 
for the nose, fur mittens and moccasins for the legs and feet. The 
principle is to keep the body as warm as possible while the cold 
outdoor air is inhaled and lived in, and much of the sunshine 
is had as can be found each day. The nights should be spent in sun- 
warmed places; that is, in such places as have received the heat 
and light of the sun the preceding day. 

Cold air contains more oxygen than warm air. This is because 
the cold air is condensed and more is inhaled in the same period of 
time. Add together this increase in the many repetitions of the 
act of repiration that occur each twenty-four hours, and you will 
see at once the great gain that the patient receives from the cold 
atmosphere. This is no theory, but is a well attested and highly 
valued fact. The oxygen must be in a state of natural life, there¬ 
fore it must be taken from the air as nature mixes it. You can 
take the four elements that produce protoplasm, but you cannot 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


171 


give life to that production. Nature alone is able to accomplish the 
vitalizing part. Neither can the doctor make lifelike oxygen. 
Moving air and sunshine combine to produce the essential principle 
that gives to air its great value as a means of cure. 

Before taking up the question of diet, which plays one of the 
most important parts in the saving of life, we will discuss the 
less prominent question of 


EXERCISE. 

It is true that activity is valuable in effecting a cure in nearly 
all cases of chronic illness. But heavy exercise and strong physi¬ 
cal exertion are directly opposed to the best interests of the con¬ 
sumptive patient. 

The lung tissue will not heal if there is much tax on the mus¬ 
cular powers. Straining, exertion, exercise of a vigorous character, 
and hard work, are all injurious to the consumptive. Rest is what 
is needed, yet it should not be absolute rest, as we shall see. 

Hard working men and women are generally candidates for 
this disease if the conditions favor it. The harder the work is 
the more the lungs are weakened. This does not mean that con¬ 
tinuous work or light drudgery will tend toward consumption, but 
it refers only to the great tax on the muscular tissue which comes 
from straining work, as is the case when great weights are lifted, or 
severe endurance is required, or loads carried, or there is pulling, 
pushing, digging, burdening, or other demand on the powers of the 
body. Rapid walking is hurtful to the lungs if they are weak, 
and helpful to them if they are in perfect condition. 

Severe tasks of walking are hurtful to the consumptive. All 
walking should be gentle, and with many little rests in between 
them. Running is bad for the well and for the sick. Runners 
do not live long. Most of those who have made the records of the 
world have died of consumption, and at an age that was hardly 
out of their young manhood. Base ball players pay the same pen¬ 
alty in a large number of cases. They go to premature graves in 
the ratio of ten times as many as those who fall early victims to 
disease out of the ranks of the non-athletic class. A young man who 
is not an active ball player stands ten times as many chances of 
reaching the age of sixty as he would if he were such a player. 
We have personally kept track of sixty-five pitchers who have 


172 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 


passed out of the world, and fifty-six of them died of consumption 
before they were forty j^ears old; yet not one was accounted sickly 
in the days of the success on the ball field. 

The gymnasium is the great school of preparation for the grave 
of the consumptive. Of this there is no doubt. It is not our 
claim, but positive statement of every expert in the treatment of 
this disease. 

If excessive physical activity will lead to consumption, it cer¬ 
tainly will also prevent getting cured of it. The human body 
was made for all kinds of uses, hut in no case does nature seek 
excesses. The practice of building up cordy knobs and bunches 
on the body toward which to invite admiring friends to gaze, is a 
freaky ambition akin to the desire to swallow pins or eat glass, 
or do the contortion act. It does the possessor no earthly good, 
and does the lungs lasting harm. 

In days of health it is wise to be active, to do all kinds of work 
with the mind and muscles; and the same spirit of activity must 
prevail in days of chronic illness of many kinds; but the consump¬ 
tive wants none of it. Rest in the midst of life is his need. Not 
too much sleep. Not too much sitting. But rest at all times. If 
he walks, let him go short distances and rest. If he works with 
his hands, let him do nothing that will call into use the upper arms 
in such way as to tax the lungs. Their tissue must be left alone. 
The feet and legs may he used gently, as in the running of a sew¬ 
ing machine, but care must be taken to do no more than the vi¬ 
tality can stand, and not to allow the upper half of the body to 
participate in the motion. Even much work may be injurious. 

The swaying motion of a rocking-chair that has a smooth floor 
to rock upon is an excellent aid to the circulation of the blood. 
Carriages that permit the easy rolling of the wheels without jar on 
the body are also helpful. But jerks and jumpy motions are to 
be avoided at all times. 

It is not a well settled fact that the lungs should rest from the 
act of breathing as an exercise. Certain experts advocate the 
quietude of the lungs, allowing them to take in what air they will 
find by the instinctive act of respiration. But lives have been lost 
by such advice. We do not deny that it is better under limited 
conditions to check the action of one lung that is far gone with 
the disease; but to make the rule a general one is most dangerous. 
We have fought the battle of the consumptives with as much sue- 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


173 


cess as any organization or expert on earth; we have never inter¬ 
posed onr mere beliefs for the sake of defending them against 
counter theories; but we have sought the truth for the benefit of the 
sufferers, and we are positive that under the strictest provisions of 
care and skilled judgment the patient actually needs help at the 
lungs, and from an increased amount of gentle respiration. 

Straining or severe effort must be avoided. This is agreed to. 
But the lungs of the discouraged sufferer are almost dead in their 
action. The act of breathing suits itself to the spirits and feel¬ 
ings of the individual. Cheer and good prospects are sure to 
double and triple the respirations. Benefits come from them. 
Likewise the patient gets benefits from the same amount of respira¬ 
tion taken by act of the will, instead of through the impulse of 
better feelings. The latter are better as long as they last; but they 
soon react, while the habit of deep respiration will stand by one 
as long as it is used. 

There are certain exercises for the lungs that bring benefits of 
great value, and that have saved men and women who were ap¬ 
parently beyond all hope. They are referred to in the later pages 
of this treatment, and the plan of using them is fully explained. 

We will, at this stage of the matter, introduce the various ques¬ 
tions of diet under the head of 

WHAT TO EAT. 

Thus far we have shown the necessity of fresh air, day and night, 
and the use of the sunlight, as well as the danger of too much 
physical activity. The food that is required by the consumptive is 
something that has as much importance in the cure as any other 
one line of treatment. It was by food that the malady became 
seated; for wrong diet must always precede the toxins; the latter 
must always precede the germs, and then the exposure to the con¬ 
tagion is the last step only. 

The food question has two bearings. First, we must omit the 
diet that may cause the toxins, for there is no advantage in fighting 
for a cure and getting the same disease again as soon as the lungs, 
are well. Restored health is no better than first health. If first 
health will contract the disease, restored health will do as much. 

Habits of life have something to do with the beginning of the 
malady, and likewise something to do with its ending. Bad habits 
will turn good food into toxins, as good habits will help to avert the 


174 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 

danger that arises from eating improper foods. We have just been 
in a community where the air is bracing and the life most con¬ 
ducive to perfect health, but the manner of cooking is so outrage¬ 
ous that the natives are victims to the white plague. They eat fish 
fried hard, potatoes fried thin, bread and biscuits made with bak¬ 
ing powder cake of the same composition and pastry galore. From 
severe attacks of dyspepsia they proceed to low vitality of the lungs, 
then the toxins attack the germs that come their way, and the 
locality has won the reputation of being the cause of consumption. 
On the other hand the fact is that the place is one of the most 
healthful in the world. But doctors say the sea air is too bracing, 
and these dwellers along the coast of Maine are getting away as 
fast as they can. Several families of Ralstonites there took up the 
matter, and followed the plan of living according to the laws of 
commonsense, and they are fast proving that the diet has more to 
do with the prevalance of the disease than anything else. These 
facts are confined to no place, but can be found staring the victims 
in the face all over the globe. Locality and climate have the 
least to do with the spread of the disease. Show us a town or city 
or village that has the reputation of being bad for consumptives, 
then put people there upon the rack of inquiry, and you will see 
the real cause. In the same place let the proper diet and habits 
of life be adopted, and you will find that consumption is leaving 
it post haste. 

This would not be true in cases where the disease is deeply 
seated in its victims. They need another line of diet, and it is 
a very hard trial for them. There is no malady that requires 
so much distressing eating as consumption. But it must be 
adopted, and there is no*escape. 

# Assuming, then, that the patient is already far advanced in the 
disease, the articles of food must be confined to a very few, and they 
must be those that will most quickly rebuild half lost tissue, heal 
that which is gone beyond recall, and furnish energy to enable the 
blood to fight down the bacteria that are swarming in the lungs. 
The following plan is in accordance with the most approved of the 
advanced diets in sanitariums and homes devoted to the cure of 
this malady. It costs money to procure the foods, but the race 
against life and health is to be checked at any expense. 

In the far advanced stages of consumption the diet should be 
as follows; 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


175 


1. In the morning, after rising, if there is no nausea, or before 
rising in case of nausea, the patient is to take a pint of very hot 
water to rinse the stomach out and get rid of the mucus that has 
accumulated during the night. The water should not scald in the 
first few swallows, but can be made gradually hotter as they are 
taken, which will enable a much higher temperature to be taken 
than would otherwise be possible. This is necessary as a prelimin¬ 
ary to the introduction of food in the stomach. 

2. A half pint of pure milk, so fresh that no cream has yet risen 
on it, should be sipped in doses of half teaspoonfuls, never allow¬ 
ing it to be drank. Ten minutes ought to be devoted to the 
taking of this milk. It is well to wait a few minutes after the 
hot water before taking the milk. Remember that the latter 
should be taken while the patient is in bed if there is nausea, but 
the hot water should not be omitted. 

3. The whites of two raw eggs should be salted to suit the taste, 
and given in half teaspoonful doses, the same as the milk. These 
must follow the milk without delay and without haste. 

4. The yolks of those two eggs and one whole egg, all raw, 
should now be heated by the shirring process, then salted, buttered 
and eaten by absorption in dry toast. The shirring is to merely 
heat the eggs, but not to coagulate them. The toast must be made 
of whole wheat bread of the Franklin mills flour, which is par¬ 
ticularly adapted to building up waste tissue by reason of its 
wholesomeness. The bread should be baked for two or three hours, 
then kept in a cool place for two days, and cut in slices as needed. 
These slices are to be heated and moistened by hot milk, then but¬ 
tered and cut into little squares about a half inch in size, and 
thrown into the cup containing the shirred eggs. It will be seen 
that there is butter on the toast and butter in the eggs. The pur¬ 
pose is to get as much fat in the system as is possible, yet in dis¬ 
guise. 

5. Following the eating of the bread and eggs, the patient must 
now take another half pint of milk, as fresh as it can be had in 
the half teaspoonful sips as before. If the cream has formed a 
layer on top of the milk, take it off and save it, but do not 
give it with the milk. This part of the meal will require ten 
minutes, or one-half hour for the whole breakfast. 

It will be seen that a pint of milk has been taken, and three eggs. 
They will prove much more palatable and beneficial than when 


176 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 

given in the usual way. Thus far the body has had bread, eggs 
and milk; and, as the bread should not be limited in quantity, the 
chances are that the first meal is equal to the needs of a laborer for 
the whole day. The butter furnishes fuel and vitality as used. 

6. In ninety minutes after the foregoing meal is ended, the 
second breakfast begins. It must be remembered that a consump¬ 
tive requires constant feeding; a sort of continuance of one meal all 
day long. It is not possible to eat too much, but the food may 
be unfit for the body and so lead to failure. 

7. The second breakfast should consist of plenty of meat with 
its fat, also bread, butter, cracked wheat and malted milk. The 
latter is taken by putting the dry powder in the cup, filling the 
same half full, and then pouring on boiling water. Drink it in 
sips, but not as slowly as the plain milk. As many cups as are 
relished may be taken at one meal. 

8. The meat should be beef in all instances. The less it is 
cooked the better it will be, provided it is sweet and fresh. 

9. Beef juice, extract, scraped beef, broths made of beef, lamb, 
mutton or chicken are all beneficial. It is well to absorb them in 
the toast squares made as stated in paragraph numbered 4. 

10. The first dinner is the repetition of the first breakfast, and 
should be given at twelve o’clock at noon. It is in every respect 
like the diet presented in paragraphs numbered 2, 3, 4 and 5. 

11. In ninety minutes after the first dinner is over, the second 
dinner is to be given, and it is as follows: Boast beef, after the 
soup course is over; bread, butter, young vegetables, especially peas, 
beans, asparagus, lettuce, beets, string beans, celery, tomatoes in 
small quantity and potatoes neither new nor very old. Watch 
should be kept over the effect of the vegetables on the stomach, as 
they are not very nutritious and are given merely to furnish 
variety. 

Anything taken in the second breakfast may, if desired, be like¬ 
wise included in the second dinner. 

12. At six o’clock the first supper is to be eaten. It should be 
merely a repetition of the first breakfast in every detail. 

13. Ninety minutes after the first supper is finished the second 
supper may be taken. It should consist of strong broths; some 
roast meat, if the stomach is not out of order and the body'is not 
feverish; rice in many varieties of form from day to day, using 
& change as often as can be done, and any of the articles or ’drinks 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


177 


that are allowed for the evening meal in High Regime as set forth 
in the book of Inside Membership, on which the Treatments are all 
founded. 

14. The quantity of milk to be taken each meal may be increased, 
but not decreased. Too much cannot be taken if it is drank in the 
way stated, that is by half teaspoonful sips. 

15. Baked apples and cream may be eaten in such quantities as 
the patient may desire at every or any meal, but only as a last 
course. Fresh peaches, if very mellow and palatable, may be eaten 
between any of the meals in any quantity, but not within one hour 
of the next meal. Bananas may be eaten if they are dead ripe, and 
they may be taken almost in any quantity desired, provided they 
follow the last course of any meal, but never between meals, and 
certainty never as the first course of a meal. They must be very 
ripe, and the skin must show discoloration as evidence of being 
fully ripe and mellow. If just a little less than dead ripe, although 
they may taste ripe, they will do great harm to the patient. But 
in the proper condition they are highly beneficial. The banana 
cannot be fooled with as an article of food. Do not take chances 
in using it. 

16. Oranges may be eaten in small quantities just before the 
morning meal, and at no other time. The whole system preceding 
breakfast, as stated in High Regime, may be adopted here unless 
any detail is in conflict with the plan given in this Treatment. 

17. Fish, chicken, turkey, lamb, mutton and steer meat may be 
used once every other day in place of the roast beef in case any of 
these meats are desired and sought by the appetite. It is important 
to vary the appetite. The forbidden diet of the book of Inside 
Membership must also be forbidden here. 

18. It must be kept in mind that the foods outside of meat, 
milk, eggs and old bread are of but little use in building up tissue 
in the body; other articles of diet serve as variety only, but do 
not give the aid that is needed. Therefore the curative diet for 
consumption must be known as that which consists of the four kinds 
of food: meat, milk, eggs and old bread. Over-eating at one time 
is not to be advised, but frequency of meals is quite necessary. 
There should be six meals each day and at regular times. There 
are two breakfasts, two dinners and two suppers. 

The diet is more liberal in cases of less advanced consumption, 
which w'e will now consider. 

12 


178 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 


LESS ADVANCED CONSUMPTION. 

While the plan that has just been stated for advanced cases is 
excellent even for those who are in the early stages of the malady, 
it need not be adhered to as strictly as when the disease has gone 
to its extreme danger. 

1. There should be four meals a day if the patient is merely sub¬ 
ject to consumption, or has not given evidence of being far ad¬ 
vanced in it. The first meal should be the same as the first 
breakfast already prescribed. The fourth meal should be the 
same as the second supper already prescribed. The second break¬ 
fast and the dinner should be the same as those allowed in High 
Regime in the book of Inside Membership, which you already own. 
These four meals can be found as stated, and all comments and ad¬ 
vice given in connection with the descriptions of them may be 
found and copied by the reader, as they embrace many pages, for 
which there is no room in this monograph. It is much better to 
read and understand all the connecting text in the descriptions. 

If the patient is somewhat advanced in the malady, there should 
be five meals per day: the two breakfasts, the first dinner and the 
two suppers, according to the plan given for those who are in the 
far advanced stages. 

It will be seen that the ground of safety in the diet embraces the 
four kinds of food: meat, milk, eggs and old bread. In fact, if 
a person were to seek protection from threatening consumption, or 
desired to be on the safer side in the diet, there could he no better 
line of foods prescribed than these four. They could be varied 
in many ways, and less of the milk and eggs could be taken, but 
still their value would be secured, and the lungs made the stronger 
for having it. 

Under the head of meats, all fats are included. Thus cod liver 
oil is fat meat. The yolks of eggs are fat meat. Bacon, the fat 
of ham, or the fat of any meat, is also included. Butter, cream, 
whole milk and some forms of cheese are likewise in the needed list 
of fats. Olive oil is not meat or vegetable, but is an excellent sub¬ 
stitute. It is a tax on the liver in some cases, as may be noted 
when the face becomes yellow after too much of it; but, aside from 
this objection, it is the best food of its kind that can be taken. 
Cod liver, oil is not pleasant to take, and leaves a taste that lingers 
in the memory long after it has left the mouth. We believe bacon 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


179 


to be the equal of it if the bacon is not made too crisp, and the fi¬ 
brous part of it is not allowed to enter the stomach. The practice of 
chewing bacon and swallowing only the juice of it, so to speak, 
ought to be encouraged. It is highly beneficial to children and to 
persons of all ages, sick or well, and holds a place equal to that 
of olive oil or cod liver oil. But when crisp it is not so good, and 
when the fibrous part is swallowed it becomes indigestible and 
hurtful. Like bananas, it is very useful and helpful if taken just 
in the right way; but is dangerous when taken at haphazard. 

Fats are required as much as any line of food in the cure of con¬ 
sumption. To admit them means that the case may be set down as 
hopeless. The same may be said of milk. And the same may be 
said of fresh air and sunshine. We do not think that meat is 
beneficial except for its fat and its juices. When well cooked it 
has no value except for its fats, and they may be cooked out of it. 
Therefore the less the meat is cooked the better it is. Bacon does 
not, however, give up its fat in good proportion until it has been 
made almost crisp; but there is a clear dividing line between 
being almost crisp and being crisp. Any careful cook can get it 
just right. 

Young persons and frail adults who have weak lungs should be 
bathed in olive oil. The best grade is required, but the quantity is 
very silght. The body should be washed in water made very hot 
gradually, and then rinsed off in clean, but hot water, to get the 
pores open. The principle of the Turkish bath is helpful to open 
the pores. When so open around the neck, the chest and the ab¬ 
domen, front, back and at the sides, the olive oil should be spread 
on with a sponge of fine texture, and rubbed in with the hands 
until it is all absorbed by the skin. Strange to say the oil reaches 
the blood, passes into the circulation and becomes part of the 
nutritive sources of the body. We know of cases where young 
girls and boys, as well as children, and a few adults, have been 
saved by three baths a day, when they could not get nutrition from 
anything taken in the stomach. The effect of this kind of feeding 
is remarkable. Patients seem to revive against their own belief, 
which is the test of a real curative process. A recent case was that 
of a girl of fifteen who was reported as dying from inability to get 
nutrition from what she ate. The doctor wrote to us for our 
natural method in such a case, and we asked him to try the olive 
oil bath, taking care to give the skin each time all it would absorb. 


180 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 

He wrote that, after the first day, the girl revived and began to 
make progress toward vitality, and in two weeks she was able to di¬ 
gest food in abundance at the stomach and alimentary canal. Since 
then he writes that he has nsed the method six times, and has 
found it very effective in every instance. 

If there is irritation at the throat, or constant coughing, it may 
be relieved by the white of an egg in many instances, and by the 
whole egg raw in cases where the white fails to stop it. There are 
very few instances where one or the other of these methods has not 
effected relief. The egg must be swallowed as far as the throat 
and there held as long as possible. There is a first swallow-place 
in the throat, which nature provides to enable a person to digest 
food by the glands. This may be tested by swallowing the pulp of 
a grape, it seems to have gone to the stomach, but it can be brought 
back and emitted from the mouth by educating the throat to give 
it up. It is here that the egg, or such part of it as can be taken 
in one swallow is held in order to relieve the irritability of the 
throat. Coughing must be suppressed. Sometimes the will power 
is able to cope with it, as when a person will omit every other 
cough. This leads to the power at length to omit three out of four 
and finally all of them. But the sick man has very little will power 
at hand. It is a good idea to suck from the shell the contents of 
the raw egg, and thus hold it longer at the place of irritation. 

This plan of half-swallowing food brings us to the idea of gland- 
digestion, which is dealt with extensively in the Treatment for 
Faulty Stomachs. Consumptives will do well to adopt that plan 
in all things. The habit of sipping milk is part of it, for the milk 
is digested and sent into the circulation at the glands of the throat. 

On the same principle the use of very old and very hard bread is 
serviceable. Let the bread be baked two or more hours, then kept 
until it is hard as a rock, and yet not spoiled; then let the patient 
chew on it as a bone might be gnawed, and the result will be that 
the bread will be digested before it gets very far from the mouth. 
Almost as soon as the crumbs are gnawed off they will be passed 
into the blood as nutrition seeking alliance with the plasma from 
which the lung-tissue is built. These facts are wonderful, but they 
are well proven in the history of recent life. Ho scientist denies 
them, and many are now making use of them as facts of the highest 
importance. 

Other facts now claim our attention. 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


181 


VITALIZING THE LUNGS. 

The gentle action of the respiratory organs should be encouraged 
and increased by easy stages until it is safe to use it as one of the 
most effective of all means of destroying the germs of tuberculosis 
that are working havoc in their tissue. 

Here are a few natural laws: 

If you leave your horse out in the thunder storm, say near a great 
tree that is struck by lightning, and the current passes through 
some portion of the animal, the death that follows is ascribed to 
the power of that current. Nature is full of electricity. This 
subtle fluid, when called into use by the art of man, can kill any 
form of large life. But it is too heavy an agent for use in de¬ 
stroying a flea or an ant or any insect. The same proportion of 
electricity applied to a gnat would be so tiny that a man would *" 
not feel it at all. But the bacteria of disease are much smaller 
than the gnat, in fact, are so much reduced in size that the least 
hair of the gnat would hold many millions of the germs. Now if 
a current of electricity so small that man would not recognize it 
as such, would kill a gnat, what would be the size of the current 
that would kill a microscopic germ that is infinitessimally smaller ? 

The answer is that the human body is a mass of thunder¬ 
storms, and of electrical disturbances when in health. The bac¬ 
teria that build the body unite to produce these currents, and they 
are known to destroy all enemies. That is one description of the 
power of vitality. It is always a fact that a man’s vitality pulls 
him through the crisis of a severe sickness. 

The human body has been at work generating currents of 
electricity for the purposes of tests and uses in many ways. By 
certain exercises it is possible to accumulate the latent magnetism 
of the body to such a power as to deflect the needle of the compass. 

We make these statements to show that the ability to create and to 
use the electrical storms of the body is something that every man 
and woman can cultivate. We append the following exercises, tak¬ 
ing them from our glame system. This system has pulled thousands 
of persons out of the grave when there seemed to be little hope left. 
They are not new, and it is better that they have borne the test 
of years, for their effectiveness is established. 

Their value will depend on the care with which they are per¬ 
formed. Do not practice them unskilfully. 


182 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 


RULES FOR VITALIZING THE LUNGS. 

1. Do not try to adopt the movements at once. Take time. 

2. Do not hold the breath so as to cause the slightest irritability 
at the throat. This is important, for coughing may follow the 
least effort. 

3. The proper way to begin is to put your mind on your res¬ 
piration. Notice how many times you take an in-going breath 
each minute. Have a watch and count, and a pencil and write 
down what you count. Date the records and refer to them. 

4. After finding yourself able to catch the movement that takes 
place when you are inhaling, and also when exhaling, seek to 
separate these in your mind on the principle that the former is 
the life-giving breath, and the latter is the sewer of the lungs. 

5. Vitality takes an ingoing breath with a vigor and grasp on it 
that seems to bring it in with some energy. Think of this, but do 
not try to do it that way. Let the mind work out new habits 
so gradually that the lungs are not taxed at all in the performance. 

6. Think of the other fact that the outgoing breath is the 
sewerage of the lungs, taking out the poisons and foul matter and 
millions of germs of disease, and also keep in mind the fact that 
every outgoing breath must have time to collect its foul burden. 
When it rushes out, as in a sigh, it takes almost nothing but air, 
and that leaves the bad matter behind. Do not permit this. 

7. Outgoing breaths may be made to carry away many millions 
of bacteria of tuberculosis, if you train the exhalations to be 
thorough and slow. 

8. Having done this, then train each exhalation to be one-hun¬ 
dredth of a second of time longer than its predecessor. This is so 
slight a difference that it does not amount to anything, and the 
lungs and throat will not be irritated by it. Do not do much the 
first day, or the first week, or the first month. If you have made 
each exhalation two-hundredths of a second longer in time in the 
first month, you have gained something; for in another month you 
will have lengthened it four-hundredths of a second, which is one- 
twenty-fifth of a second. Then, as you find that you can do this 
without the slightest irritation to the throat and lungs, keep on 
until you have made the exhalations a full second longer in 
time than they were before. This is a. real victory. The habit, 
being so slow and so gradual, will not seem any change at all, and 


183 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 

nature will take it up and adopt it as its fixed custom. Then learn 
to add one more second of time to each exhalation, and you have 
gained the whole victory in this direction. 

9. As the exhalation is made longer in point of time, so it should 
be made fuller in point of volume. That is, more air should be 
taken out of the lungs. This is what is called dead air. Dead air 
holds many of the germs that cause consumption, but dead air is 
not often driven out. You are learning to do so now. 

10. The movements thus far have dealt with exhalations only. 
After a time you will be free to devote your attention to the in¬ 
halations. They are the opposite of the sewerage. They carry life 
into the lungs. They develop the electrical energy, that sends 
its destructive currents through the body and especially through 
the lungs. 

11. The following exercises are to be performed very lightly at 
first, and not in their full strength as described, until you have 
fought down the tendency to cough or be irritated at the throat 
the moment the air is sent in by act of the will. We give them 
at their maximum now, but it will take a few months for you to 
work up to that degree of effort. 

FIRST ELECTRICAL ENERGIES. 

Sit or stand still in any place where the air is in motion, or has 
recently been in motion, however lightly, and upon which the sun 
is shining, or has recently shone. A carriage that is not going at 
a rapid rate, will suffice as a place for practice, and those who go 
driving should avail themselves of the opportunity of getting glame. 
It is a good idea to take along a piece of broom stick, of the or¬ 
dinary diameter for a man, and of the smaller diameter for a 
woman or young person. It is not necessary to sit in the sun, but 
not harmful if the rays are not irritating, or vertical. There is no 
vertical sun in winter, or in the late fall or early spring. 

While observing the above directions, fill the lungs to their ut¬ 
most capacity, and hold the breath long enough to count three and 
no more. The time should be about three seconds. Let the breath 
escape very slowly, say in six to ten seconds. Repeat in the man¬ 
ner stated by drawing in the fullest possible breath and hold four 
seconds and no more. Let the breath out very slowly. Repeat 
by drawing in the breath very gradually and hold for five seconds. 
Always inhale through the nose, if possible. 


184 SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 


ADVANCED ELECTRICAL ENERGIES. 

Empty the lungs completely; inhale a quick short breath through 
the nostrils without hearing the breath pass in; instead of allowing 
this to escape immediately add another quick short breath to it; 
and keep on so doing until the lungs are packed full. This may 
be carried on until the air in the lungs becomes condensed by the 
force of the inhalations, provided it does not result in coughing. 
Bear down on the shoulders while inhaling, and never raise the 
shoulders under any circumstances. 

This exercise may be repeated as often as desired, but as it may 
cause an unpleasant feeling it is best not to overdo it. 

GLAME ENERGIES. 

Fill the lungs full, clasp with the right hand, and with the left 
a piece of wood about the diameter of a broom handle. For gentle¬ 
men a broom handle of large diameter will suffice, and for ladies 
one of smaller diameter. Clasp this as gently as possible while 
holding the breath for three seconds. It is at this stage of the 
work that a faint presence of GLAME will be detected, although 
not till after many trials in some persons. It enters the body, 
whether felt or not. 

DESTRUCTIVE ELECTRICAL STORMS. 

The fourth and last is the most effective. It is very important 
in its results, if practiced with care. First, be sure of pure vitalized 
air. Second, prepare by emptying the lungs, and still keep on 
emptying them after you think you cannot breathe out any more 
air. Third, you are now ready: inhale slowly, steadily, smoothly, 
irresistibly until the lungs are completely filled. Fourth, as soon 
as you commence to breathe in, bring a very light pressure to bear 
on the glame-sticks in your hands and gently increase this pres¬ 
sure as you are inhaling. Fifth, during the time the air is being 
inhaled, accompanied by the gently increasing pressure, maintain 
perfect stillness and absolute quietude of the whole body. 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


185 


A BRIEF EXPLANATION. 

Everything in this world is done on an ingoing breath. Even 
the spirit that lives in the body comes in with it. When the body 
dies, the spirit leaves with the breath. We refer to the physical 
spirit, not the immortal sonl. The distinction between the two 
is seen in our emolument work, Immortality, which is given to 
progressive Ralstonites who care to take up such study. See the 
rules of the Ralston Clan. 

If an athlete wishes to get the best of his strength for any pur¬ 
pose he will find that the ingoing or the held breath is always 
necessary. 

The physical life of the body generates warmth, as is easily 
proved by running a few rods; the nerve life of the body gener¬ 
ates electricity, as is proved in the book on the cultivation of per¬ 
sonal magnetism; electricity, when developed by the will power 
from self efforts (and in no other way), is internal and reaches all 
germs of disease, destroying them instantly, as lightning kills. It 
is electrical, though not magnetic. It is able to destroy all disease 
germs even in the lungs, as in consumption. It permeates the 
whole flesh mass of the body from the center to the surface. 

Glame is the source of vitality; and becomes the vital source 
present in every specimen of living matter, whether animal or 
vegetable. If a student, possessed only of ordinary ability, were 
to think studiously of life, he would stop at that impassible bar¬ 
rier, the origin of vitality. If a scientist, as profound and skilful 
as any can be, were to tell the world of this vitality, he would be 
able to describe only its results, not the power itself. It is our in¬ 
tention, on the threshold of this description, to show that glame 
is dealt with in daily life. The word means vitality; but we use 
it to describe only that vitality which tends to establish perfect 
health. It will be more readily understood if we say that glame 
is vigor of life, or the spark of life, or that vital principle which 
maintains life. 

Young people have much more glame than those past mid¬ 
dle life, but the constant presence of one with the other tends to 
equalize this vitality. Old people who sleep with children draw 
vitality from them, and the latter grow old fast, while the former 
assume less of old age. So well established is this fact that a 
theory of longevity was advanced a generation ago and endorsed 


186 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 


by the ablest scientists, which declared that an old man could re¬ 
new his youth by keeping about him continually a few robust 
children. The principle is still sound, and many present cases 
might be cited. 

The importance of this power may be seen in the fact that it 
throws a buoyant feeling, exactly similar to the happiness of 
youth, into the nature even of an old person. It is quickly 
developed. An author had sent his manuscript, which repre¬ 
sented the labor of years, to a dozen publishers with unvarying 
failure. One day he received word that the work had been ac¬ 
cepted. With the joyful news burning in his heart, he resolved to 
go to his home and family at night with the same serious face, and 
unchanged manner. He succeeded admirably, as he thought; but 
his wife noticed a brightness in his eye, and felt a warmth of joy 
as he entered the house. He felt what people call happy. It was 
electrical vitality. A vast amount of glame had entered the sys¬ 
tem, and the result was happiness. A man at a theatre during a 
performance felt the power of the acting until it seemed to him 
like real life, and he applauded. Another man heard that his 
nation’s flag had been fired upon, and a thrill of patriotism filled 
his heart. He was a transformed man. Napoleon, by a few 
words, swayed his soldiers to deeds of daring almost without 
parallel. Orators sway audiences. Good news thrills us with joy. 
Success, triumph, pride, hope, trust, ambition, zeal, all are ex¬ 
hibitions of a life within, known as electrical vitality, and attended 
by more glame than can be extracted in a day from warm blood, 
or departing life. Here is a lesson for us. 

A person who will state that there is no such thing as glame is 
not honest. Experiments prove the fact beyond all doubt. It is 
always exhilaration. Anyone who desires to know the outward 
evidences of glame may easily find them in the following facts: 
Glame exhilarates. All natural exhilaration is the result of glame. 
Natural cheerfulness is accompanied by, and generates glame. Bad 
news will stop digestion and affect the appetite. Good news will 
not only aid digestion, but cheerfulness will cause the blood to as¬ 
similate a greater proportion of nutriment from the same amount 
of food. If this is not glame, what is it? It is something or 
nothing. Test cheerfulness. If natural, the breathing is deeper 
and more vital. More than half of all headaches are directly 
traceable to the lack of even ordinary respiration. A person whose 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 187 

vitality is normal could never catch cold, and could not possibly 
take disease. We call vitality glame. If vitality does not exist, 
then glame does not. But glame is in the cause as well as in 
the presence of vitality. 

DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING GLAME. 

That which is unworthy of attention is not discussed. The papers 
have had much to say about glame. In a large city, a newspaper 
owner sent for a prominent merchant and said: “I understand that 
you are a Ralstonite. The patent medicine men tell me that glame is 
nonsense.” The merchant replied: “ My dear sir, you are making 

a large draft on your honesty and self-respect in criticizing what 
you never tried to find out. Give glame a trial. It costs nothing. 
You saw me a year ago, you see me to-day. Is that nonsense ? If 
so, then the fact that I am above ground, and not under it, is 
nonsense also.” The editor became a member, and sent a private 
letter to many of his friends, advising them to join the Club. 

We refer to glame as the first cardinal point of health, because 
it is the life principle. It is the spirit that lives within the cell 
that is formed of perfect food. The body of that splendid athlete 
who was recently drowned, although he was under water but a few 
minutes, was opened to the surgeon’s view, and showed that every 
organ and part was perfect. As he lay upon the grassy bank after 
being in the pond so brief a period of time, when the water was 
removed from his lungs and a lucky chance had brought an elec¬ 
trical current to his heart to start it again in motion, it was found 
that this splendid piece of humanity lacked but one thing, and that 
was the spark of life. No one but God could give that. Thus it is 
seen that the life-principle, glame, is the most important of all the 
essentials of existence. 

The first glame-influence is called sunlight, for this is the source 
of all life on earth. We are all children of the sun; and so is every 
living plant, tree and animal. The spark of life is delivered to us 
by the ray of sunshine in pure air. The same air without the 
sunshine, or the same ray of light without the air, would be useless 
and dangerous if persisted in. It is for this reason that vertical 
or nearly vertical sunshine, as in summer between the hours of 
ten and three, passing through the thinnest zone of air, is injurious 
to humanity and to plants; while, on the other hand, in winter 


188 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 


when all vitality runs low, the rays of the sun are always slanting 
and come to us through a great range of air, thus furnishing the 
combination that produces glame. 

We sum up these laws in the following series of facts: 

1st Fact— Glame is a vitality present in oxygen, or oxygen that 
has been vitalized by sunlight. It is found in the shade as well 
as in the moderate warmth of the direct sunshine; but it is never 
present except in moving air upon which the sun has shone. 

2d Fact .—Glame is attracted by energy and is lost by lassitude. 

3d Fact. —Oxygen, being the most energetic of the elements 
affecting human life, draws glame to itself. 

4 th Fact.—G lame enters the body with the oxygen that we 
breathe, and passes out of the body with every exhalation. It is 
thus wasted and lost. 

5 th Fact .—To separate glame from oxygen while in the lungs 
requires a drawing power of greater energy than oxygen itself, 
which, in a corrupt or new chemical compound, leaves the body 
with each exhalation. 

6th Fact .—The energy of the body is in the nerves, which 
form the source of all physical power. 

7 th Fact .—-Nerve energy is made manifest by an exercise known 
as the tensing exercise. 

8 th Fact .—Performance of the tensing exercise while oxygen 
is retained in the lungs will draw glame from it in quantities, 
depending upon the amount of air in the lungs. 

9 th Fad .—Air in motion, upon which the sun is shining or 
has recently shone, imparts the largest possible quantity of glame 
to oxygen; therefore, performing the tensing exercises while breath¬ 
ing such air quickly draws it into the system. 

If you suddenly close the hand with great power, the nerves act 
instantly and affect only the muscles. Any sudden use of muscu¬ 
lar strength develops the activity and power of the muscles only. 
The nerves take on no growth. But if the hand is placed upon a 
round piece of wood so lightly that it seems to be entirely devoid 
of strength, not able in fact to hold up its own weight, and then 
gradually begins to show muscular power, but in a very slight 
degree, evenly and smoothly keep tightening its grasp until it 
develops the utmost strength of which it is capable, then the nerves 
are called into active play by what is known ns the tension exer¬ 
cises. The lighter the grasp at the beginning the stronger its 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


189 


power at the end, with a regular graded increase from this weak¬ 
ness to this strength, the more energy will be displayed by the 
nerves. Holding the breath while performing the tension exercises 
will cause the glame which is associated with the oxygen to leave 
it and pass directly into the nerves, going at once to the fountain 
of the vitality of the body, whence it reappears in a richer condi¬ 
tion of the blood and a healthier activity of all the functions of 
life. 

Of the thousands of reports concerning glame and its speedy ef¬ 
fects on the health, most of which were concurred in by physicians, 
the majority said that the gentle pressure of the clinched hand 
very gradually increased, but never with full strength, developed 
by far the largest quantities of this vitality. To a person who has 
once felt true glame the following methods of drawing it at will 
from the oxygen in the lungs will be understood and appreciated: 

a. Take a gentle breath very calmly. When the lungs are 
easily full, but not crowded, close the hand so lightly that the 
most delicate pressure is felt. Think of the happiest prospect 
possible. A flutter of ecstasy will follow so plainly that its pres¬ 
ence will teem with vitality. Force, haste, impatience, ill-humor or 
disbelief will destroy all chances of drawing glame. 

b. Repeat the foregoing exercise by the will alone, without 
any action of the hand. 


When once you have developed glame you will Tecognize its 
nature, and will always be able to summon it at 'pll. Failure 
comes from muscular effort. Success depends on the withdrawal 
of all such energy, and the use of the nerves. The quieter the 
body and the calmer the mind, the sooner will glame be created. 


WHERE SHALL THE CONSUMPTIVE GO? 

There are all sorts of opinions as to the place where the con¬ 
sumptive should go, or rather be sent in order to receive the best 
treatment and care. The advice generally given is to seek some 
sanatorium. Once in a while it is recommended that the patient 
stay at home; but this view is ridiculed by the medical profession. 




i90 special treatment number seven. 

Let us say to begin with that the author of this treatise belongs 
to a family of consumptives. His mother was one of ten children, 
nearly all of whom died of that disease, as well as the mother of 
them also, and at twenty-one he was supposed to be hopelessly gone 
with weak lungs. To save his mother and himself, he entered 
earnestly into the study of the malady in all its bearings; and, as 
result, he is still living and able to work many hours overtime each 
day, and his mother is also alive and in good health. 

This much is said to show the interest which he takes in the sub¬ 
ject. And, if calamity of like nature should touch one of his 
family to-day, he would not under any circumstances permit the 
patient to leave home. But the reason for this is the fact that he 
would personally make the fight to save the loved one. He would 
fight and win. Not that defiance can be made to the decrees of 
the Almighty, but that care and sincere effort can always win in 
this battle. We do not believe that God intends disease to visit 
humanity except as punishment for a disregard of the laws of 
nature. To be in a position to succeed in the struggle, we would 
heed these laws and thus escape the penalty. 

If the patient were some person who was in the way at home, we 
would probably accept the advice of the doctors and let him go to 
the sanatorium. In that institution, if it were honestly conducted, 
the results would be favorable in a majority of cases. But we have 
no drones and no human incumbrances in our home life. All are 
loved and watched, from the youngest to the aged, and we would 
not consent to have them leave us, even for the care of a sana¬ 
torium. 

If we were wretchedly poor, we would contrive in some way to 
get the means with which to erect an outdoor platform sheltered 
from the bleak winds, and open to the sun, and here we would 
have the patient live in the light and air under the most favoring 
circumstances. We would also manage in some way to get fresh eggs, 
and fresh milk, and good meat, and have the bread baked long 
and kept until hard; and with these articles of diet we would follow 
the teachings of this treatise, seeing to it that the patient was 
looked after and encouraged as much as possible. Other kinds of 
food would be given merely to make variety, and the use of fats and 
olive oil would be made a prominent part of the treatment. 

In one such case we recommended a member of this club to build 
just such a platform out of doors in the air and open to the sun- 


WEAK LUNGS AND CONSUMPTION. 


191 


light, and we were told a few months afterward that the cost was 
paid for by some friends, who also helped in procuring the foods 
required. The patient was a woman of thirty-five. She learned 
to love the life on the platform. She was eager to get there, and 
soon hardened herself to all kinds of weather. She would get up in 
the morning before the sun rose, and would witness the first coloring 
of the sky every clear day. She would go out after her supper and 
fall asleep in the easy-chair which friends had placed there for her. 
The case was watched with great interest by hundreds, and there 
were more contributions of money and food, of clothing and com¬ 
forts of various kinds than she could make use of. The lungs 
healed, the blood became full and vigorous, the flesh was newly 
built, and what can now be termed perfect health has come to her; 
and this she had never possessed before in all her life. 

A sanatorium might have done as much; it is possible that it 
would ; but the probabilities were not fully that way. We think 
our advice was the better; but it is undoubtedly a matter of 
opinion. 

We have heard doctors say that the consumptive at home is re¬ 
garded as being in the way. The coughing is annoying, and the 
fear of catching the disease makes all members of the family look 
upon the sufferer as a source of danger. To avoid the contagion 
care in disposing of the expectorations is all that is necessary. To 
stop the coughing give the white of an egg, or the whole egg, al¬ 
lowing it to be held as long as possible in the throat. Also teach 
the use of a little delay in making the coughing. We have known 
this alone to check it entirely. 

Never take cough medicines. 

Never take drugs or medicines of any kind for consumption. 

If there is any human being who seeks to convince you that some 
antidote for this disease has been discovered, set him down as your 
natural enemy. It seems wrong to trifle with life under such 
circumstances; but there are charlatans and patent medicine men 
who will take money for the very thing that is sure to make the 
disease worse. Every drop of medicine that goes into the stomach 
is part of the coffin that you are making for the end. 

Consumption is not hereditary. Weak lungs may be inherited, 
as may weak minds or weak knees. But the malady itself is due 
to the toxins in the blood and body, and waits on the prevalence in 
abundance of the germs that feed on such toxins. This fact is 


192 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVEN. 


well understood and thoroughly established. If your diet is right, 
and your habits of life in accordance with the simple laws of 
nature, you will not catch consumption even if you are exposed to 
it on every hand; for you have no toxins that the germs can feed 
upon. When your blood has been made bad by improper food and 
wrong habits of life, then all that is necessary to bring on the 
disease is to be exposed to the germs in abundance at a period when 
your vitality is low. 

The kind of life that you ought to live is given in the book of 
Inside Membership, which you already own; and the habits and 
diet there described are your safeguard at all times and under all 
circumstances. 

All the foregoing treatment represents the most advanced science 
of to-day. It has the hearty concurrence of the best physicians and 
coincides with the advice of specialists who are skilled enough to be 
of actual service to a sufferer. 

In using this treatment, be sure to read every word again and 
again. One reading is not sufficient. A dozen readings will, we 
guarantee, give you new ideas and new light, new information each 
time. The purpose of this treatment is to effect a cure. It will do so 
if you adopt it fully and persistently. It is worth your while to try. 
It may mean health and even prolonged life to you. Do not pass by 
any detail slightingly. If you are in earnest remember that the 
best medicine is nature, the best cure is regime, the best doctor is 
common sense, and the best treatment is to build the body out of 
the materials that go to make the body. All else is sure to invite a 
penalty. 

Remember that little indiscretions will offset all the good you 
may do. Try to. hunt up in your daily life all the little things that 
are indiscretions. What do you do that lowers your vitality? 
Think. Do you go out with thin soled shoes? Do you stand on 
the cold ground saying good-bye to a friend ? Do you stand on the 
brick or stone sidewalk conversing only a minute, but just long 
enough to lower your vitality ? Do you get heated and then go to 
an open window to get cooled off ? Do you stand in the open door¬ 
way when some acquaintance is leaving your house ? 

All these and much else may be classed as indiscretions that are 
sure to lower the vitality and prevent a rapid cure. The best social 
function is a pleasant disposition, and this will turn good food into 
good blood more rapidly than anything else. 


From Hook of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 8 



We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 

This Treatment is private. It is rented to the Inside Member 
to whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The member has no right to loan this mono¬ 
graph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or to come 
into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the same. 
This rule does not forbid the use of the Treatment by the member in 
behalf of any child or aged person who is actually in the member’s 
household; but all others must become Inside Members of the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help of this Treat¬ 
ment. To become such members will not cost anything, as may be 
seen by consulting the final pages of the book of Inside Member¬ 
ship, if the steps are taken as there directed. 

13 


( 193 ) 





194 Special Tr^atm^nt number eight. 


THE GEEAT NEEVES-TEEATMENT. 

Specialists in the treatment of nervous disorders have succeeded 
in making nearly one thousand sub-divisions of the maladies and 
forms of disease that are called nervous; and, as time wings its 
flight into other decades, many more will be discovered. There are 
so many now and they are known by such strange words, that it is 
much better for the patient not to know what is troubling her, 
except in a general way. 

The poor book-keeper, who is overworked and under-fed, is com¬ 
pelled to endure the common malady under the name of nervous 
breakdown, or prostration, while the wealthy lady, who ruins her 
nerves by late hours and a modern diet, is honored with the term 
neurasthenia. These names are applied to the most frequent of 
nervous conditions of a chronic nature. 

Temperament is said to be the foundation of diseases that come 
under this head, and of almost all nervous maladies. But obser¬ 
vation shows that the so-called nervous temperament is less likely 
to give way under continued strain than the other kinds that 
turn nervous. 

A temperament may be normal and yet nervous; in which case 
it is merely sensitive and mobile. Whether we ought to use 
these words or not is a question, as we have agreed to employ only 
such terms and language as may be readily understood by the 
ordinary reader. But we do not know where to find substitutes 
for sensitive and mobile. 

By sensitive is meant the habit of feeling more quickly and 
more keenly any impression that reaches the mind or affects the 
body. Thus a nervous person is sensitive to pain, or to the touch 
of another, or to the sounds that abound, or to the smells that are 
prevalent, or to news, incidents and occurrences that might come 
along in the ordinary course of events; while such things might 
make no impression upon one who is phlegmatic. All very fine¬ 
grained individuals dislike noises that are distracting. The ever¬ 
lasting playing of one tune upon the piano, or the racket of the old 
time Fourth of July, or the fidgeting of a child, as well as a thou¬ 
sand other details of life, are real pain to such a disposition. All 


FAULTY NERVES. 


195 


the senses may be affected by something that will hurt the nervous 
feelings. 

A mobile temperament is one that changes itself to each slight 
condition. It is easily moved to joy or to tears, and thus is some¬ 
times said to be emotional; but when it borders on the hysterical 
it becomes abnormal. We are describing the normal and health¬ 
ful nervous life. All the successful men and women of all eras 
have been mobile and sensitive, but within bounds or limits, in 
most cases. Against these habits the practice of holding the feel¬ 
ings in check and concealing their exhibition to others, has marked 
the person of great personal power and control; for it is true that, 
in proportion as you let yourself go, in the same degree you come 
within the lairs of those who would use and misuse you. 

When a person is thus sensitive and mobile, he is always called 
nervous. It is not until he allows these traits to pass beyond his 
control that he is weak in nerves. 

There are so many suicides that are due to excessive nervousness 
that it would seem as if the individual of such temperament was 
in danger of self-destruction rather than those of the other dis¬ 
position. But the fact is that persons of natural nervous tem¬ 
perament, from childhood up, are less likely to break down than 
those who allow the habit to come into their lives in the teens 
or afterwards. This is not the universal fact, but it is the general 
rule. There are plenty of exceptions both ways. 

Enjoyment of all kinds, and the fulness of earthly existence, 
are granted only to those who are normally sensitive and mobile in 
habits. Without these two great qualities there is no love for the 
beauties of life, for the flowers, the colors, the forms of art, the 
purity of classic music, the gardens and lawns, the fine architec¬ 
ture, the excellent traits of human character, the demands of the 
soul, and the multiplied pleasures that make life worth living. 
The lack of these attributes is the endowment of animal natures. 
The higher such a temperament rises in its uses of the sensitive 
and mobile qualities, the less it suffers from the mistakes of 
others, and the more it sees of the better part of each human soul. 

On the other hand the lower the stratum in which the nervously 
diseased temperament travels, the more it sees of the wrongs of 
life, the short-comings of friends, the sinister motives of enemies 
and the trifling irritations of the day. A thousand things rise 
up to worry and annoy it, and the belief comes to be well settled 


196 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 

that such trifles are the result of a dark plot aimed at the peace 
and comfort of the patient. This latter condition is one of the 
phases of neurasthenia. As we have stated it comes more fre¬ 
quently to those who, by native temperament, are not nervous. 
They have acquired it. 

The nerves are said to be weak when they are fragile in their 
fibers; they transmit the fluid of life in a broken and unhealthy 
manner. These fibers are built and wasted day after day, and 
may thus be strengthened by attention to their demands, as we 
shall presently see. They are like a network of telegraph wires 
run through a city; if the wires are too light or too fragile for the 
currents they are given to carry, something will give way, a break¬ 
down and interruption of their duties will surely follow. 

The repair of the wires in the city is the duty of men who are 
assigned to that task; but in the human body such repair must 
be carried on by the blood and the habits of life. There is no 
other way. 

Weak nerves are, therefore, weak lines of communication from 
one part of the body to another. 

Nervous prostration may or may not be present when the nerves 
are weak. Some persons go through life with the latter condition 
who are never victims of neurasthenia. We have, to begin with, 
the condition of the wires over which the fluid of life is to pass. 
To this extent the nerves are faulty and need our attention. But 
before taking up the cure of that condition let us see what is 
meant by neurasthenia, or prostration. The wires of the city are 
useless unless they are fed by a series of batteries of electric 
powers. The current must run through them. If the current is 
weak, the wires are of no use. It is senseless to establish the 
strongest wires, as where the thousands of street cars are to be 
impelled through a metropolis, and then send through those wires 
a current that is not strong enough to move a toy wagon. All the 
cars would be at a standstill. The electric system would be pros¬ 
trated. 

Nervous prostration, or neurasthenia, is the poor quality of 
the nervous fluids that are sent in all parts of the body. The 
only difference is that, in time, the nerves themselves, however 
strong to begin with, will grow weak because of lack of proper use; 
fQr continued inactivity will lessen the power of the body and all 
its functions. 


FAULTY NERVES. 


197 


A train of discomforts and other breakdowns will always fol¬ 
low this lack of supply of the fluid of life. Let us see what they 
are. In the first place we wish you to imagine every organ as sus¬ 
pended in the body in a sack or membrane, through whose por¬ 
tals the juices of the body’s activities are made to flow back and 
forth; and this combination is sustained by a mass of fine lines 
or threads known as nerves, that radiate from a larger cord or 
rope that we will call a cable-nerve. 

The organs must have the juices that pass to and fro in the 
surrounding sacks or membranes, and this flow is instigated and 
kept up by the influence of the nervous fluid that comes through 
the nerves as described. Prostration means the lessening of this 
flow of juices, and the constant suffering of the organ. The 
heart may be the sufferer, in which case the danger is great. The 
kidneys may be the direct victims, or the liver, or stomach; and 
the weakness of their life is sure to bring misery into mind and 
body. It is said that the patient is made to feel the consequences 
of nervous breakdown by the inability of the stomach and alimen¬ 
tary canal to digest food. The next step down hill is in the 
sluggish flesh-tissue all through the body; it is fed by fine nerves, 
such as you will discover by the prick of a pin, and when these 
have not life enough to feed the tissue-building function of the 
body, there will be failure on the part of the latter to assimilate 
the nutrition that may come from the stomach. This, then, is 
a double disaster. For what is the good of digesting food if the 
flesh will not draw it from the blood after the stomach has sup¬ 
plied it to the blood? 

The two first results of neurasthenia are these: 

Lessened powers of digestion. 

Malassimilation. 

Now the triple danger is seen: Less value is obtained from the 
food that is eaten; less nutrition is assimilated in the body, and 
less supply of the nervous life is given to the functions. No 
wonder the patient is preyed upon by the vagaries of a suspicious 
and irritated brain. No wonder that the natural end of neuras¬ 
thenia is suicide. One would not have to go back many years to 
reach the sum total of one million deaths in America from this 
single cause. 

The conditions we have described are the outcome of acquired 
habits of living, rather than a native temperament. No victim 


198 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 

is willing to blame herself for having this malady; she invariably 
looks back to some time when circumstances over which she had 
no control brought on the weakened life within the body. 

It is useless for us to undertake to locate the blame. 

Let us seek rather to find the remedy. 

To do this it is necessary for the patient to think and to act 
for herself. As long as there is consciousness there is sure to be 
the irritated flow of the weakened fluid along the nerves, and the 
weakened condition of the nerves themselves; and these will harass 
and annoy the body, as well as keep it from doing its part in each de¬ 
tail for the support of the life it sustains. Unconsciousness is 
tbe only period of relief. It cannot be obtained in sleep at all 
times when desired, for one of the symptoms of the faulty nerves 
is the inability to get sleep at the proper time. The use of drugs 
to bring on sleep is sure to set back the possibility of cure, yet 
most persons seek relief in drugging. 

This is an age of mistakes in diet and the habits of life, and it 
is consequently the age of neurasthenia and suicide. Greater 
numbers must suffer before the public wakes up to the fact that 
the only method of cure is in the revolution of these errors. 

More than twenty-six millions of the people of this land are 
victims to a greater or less extent of this malady, and they are 
forming the drug habit so fast that the present rapid increase in 
suicides will be maintained for many years to come. We can set 
it down as a never-varying law that every person who seeks relief 
by killing off the life of a nerve must carry on that form of relief 
by killing the whole body; for as long as the nerve lives it will 
react; and every time it reacts it will set up increased irritation, 
until ? death of the body is demanded through an insane impulse 
of the mind. 

What remedy is suggested by the doctors who are best ac¬ 
quainted with the disease? They are specialists. They do not 
effect cures that are permanent. This we know. Less than five 
patients in a hundred are really bettered for an indefinite time by 
the cures that are attempted by doctors who have given themselves 
up to the study of this malady. Why not? They rely upon diet, 
change of conditions, and what is known as the rest cure. The diet 
is kept up only as long as the treatment is in use; then comes the 
old diet. The change of conditions is maintained as long as cir¬ 
cumstances will permit; as when the patient goes away for a 


faulty nerves. 


199 


journey; but on the return the old habits are renewed and the 
malady is sure to reappear. The rest cure cannot, by its own 
nature, endure for many weeks, and when its work is done, the 
old habits are invited into the weakened life. Where, then, is the 
permanent cure? Of what use is a method that will efface the 
damage to a great extent, and that will never seek to remove the 
cause ? 

What is the cause of faulty nerves ? 

The cause is threefold: 

1. A wicked abuse of the good things of the table. 

2. A train of habits that are at variance with the laws of health. 

3. A wicked abuse of the mental functions. 

The patient is invariably endowed with the remarkable faculty 
of being able to deny each and all of these indictments, and of 
believing that she is right in so denying them. All doctors have 
had great difficulty in making the patient see that errors are 
errors. She will defend her mistakes, under the plea that they do 
no harm, and that many others indulge in them. She does not 
stop to realize that the many others are on the same road that 
she is travelling with her nerves. 

We have used the feminine gender for the reason that of every 
hundred patients in this disease, about eighty are women. When 
a man becomes weak in his nerves, he has feminine nerves, and 
may be termed she. It is true that there are many men who suffer 
from neurasthenia when we regard them collectively; but they 
generally end their lives and thus come into public notice on 
that account; while the women victims endure for many years, and 
are sustained by their religion, or by their love of relatives. The 
man does not wait till he is insane; the woman generally does. 
The man commits the crime against himself because he cannot 
endure the burden of his condition, and because it is generally at¬ 
tended by some other fact that is a disgrace; and he wishes to step 
out of it all. The woman prays, suffers, keeps on making the 
mistakes that aggravate the malady, adds to them by the use of 
drugs, and goes the limit, until the mind breaks under the load. 
Then she takes some other life, in many instances, and follows 
by self-destruction. 

We are likely to be blamed for stating these things as they are; 
for it will be argued that the reference to suicide will incite the 
sufferers to go down to that end. But past experience shows that a 


200 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


mind that is still sane will take warning at these suggestions and 
turn about ere it is too late. 

There is a cure and a prevention for this condition. We have 
covered the ground during the past quarter of a century as no other 
association has done, and we have facts to rely upon whereby 
we are enabled to give help to those who suffer. The first requi¬ 
site is the willingness of the patients to think and to act for them¬ 
selves. If they cannot be converted to a belief in this fundamental 
truth, there is no hope unless they take up the treatment as they 
come into the notion, see some things in it that appeal to their 
good sense, then set about applying them. This has been done ill 
many instances where all the usual methods had failed. 

We are, however, glad to be able to say that, of the many thou¬ 
sands of cases of faulty nerves among our members, nearly all 
of them have been very willing and glad to undertake the plan we 
have given them, and the details of this treatise are based upon the 
successes that have been thus achieved. 

We have assigned three causes as operating together to bring on 
this disease. One is the abuse of the good things of the table, 
another is the mistakes of daily living through wrong habits, and 
the third is the abuse of the mental functions. We do not believe 
that any one, or any two, of these will cause the breakdown of the 
nerves. All three must combine. Of course, it is true that abuse 
of the stomach will bring on its train of maladies, and that errors 
of habits will cause their ills, as also will the abuse of the mind; 
but the three causes must operate together to establish what is 
known as neurasthenia. 

It is hardly necessary for us to go over in this treatise the whole 
system of diet as set forth in the book of Inside Membership; we 
might properly drop this part of the subject by referring you to 
the diet of high regime as the best in the prevention of faulty 
nerves. But what about the diet when the prostration is almost 
collapse ? 

We have secured the essential details of cure from a number of 
specialists, and they seem to agree that the “ main reliance in all 
treatment must be placed upon rest, food and change.” We use 
the language they employ, as near as possible. 

The chief obstacle to a speedy cure is found in the unwillingness 
of the patients to deal honestly with the treatment; for they consult 
their convenience too much. 


FAULTY NERVES. 


201 


DIET IN EXTREME EXHAUSTION. 

The pioneer in the use of the following diet was Weir Mitchell; 
his food requirement is milk, but he has made it less rigid than 
at first. The present diet is milk for six days, as follows. We 
have varied the plan to meet with the views of others who have 
given it full trial under varying conditions, and who find it more 
successful as now employed: 

For the first of the six days, give three half-pints of fresh milk, 
in doses divided from about seven o’clock in the morning until 
ten at night. This will be three-fourths of a quart. The milk 
should be given in half-teaspoonful lots, and sipped, so that as 
little of it as possible will reach the stomach. 

The second day, double the quantity, making three pints. Take 
as before. If the patient will not sleep well at night, let the 
milk be given all through that period, decreasing the quantity 
allowed each time, as no more than the three pints should be given 
the second day. 

The third day is to be the same as the second. 

On the fourth day, beef, mutton or lamb is allowed in the form 
of a broth, in which old bread baked as advised in our book of 
Inside Membership is broken. This is to be in addition to the 
three pints of milk. 

On the fifth day, all the diet of the fourth, including the milk, 
is to be used, but a small piece of mutton chop may be given at 
the middle of the meal. The bread may be eaten as abundantly as 
wished, and may be taken between the sips of milk, being chewed 
for a long time so as to carry on digestion in the mouth as far 
as possible, and thus relieve the stomach. 

No meat at any time, when well or sick, must be taken later 
than the hour of noon. The use of meat in the afternoon or even¬ 
ing meals will sooner or later turn the healthiest nerves into 
neurasthenia with the other conditions favoring. Meat excites the 
nerves, and should be taken at least ten hours before the time of 
going to bed for the night’s sleep. This applies to all fibrous 
animal food. Let it be kept well in mind at all times. 

It is recommended that all nervous persons take meat at the 
morning meal, and then not at all until the next morning. The 
best meats are those given in high regime, which is in your book of 
Inside Membership. 


202 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


On each of the next five days, until the end of the tenth, the 
diet is to include three pints of milk, with the additions stated for 
the fifth day, but with others added. The sixth day should be like 
the fifth; then the strict milk diet is varied without lessening the 
three pints of that food. After the sixth day, mealy potatoes, 
green vegetables and rice may be added; allowing the potatoes for 
the morning meal, the green vegetables for the noon meal, and the 
rice for the evening meal. 

It will be noticed that for the first three days there is a diet 
of nothing but milk. The result of this will be to induce a heavy, 
sluggish feeling that will make the nerves quiet and set up a ten¬ 
dency to sleep. Three days of this diet always brings this result, 
unless the patient abuses some other department of life. 

The important part of the treatment is now to be given: 

THE AFTER DIET. 

When the ten days are up, adopt the following diet: 

For the breakfasts and dinners, adopt the full plan of high 
regime in the book of Inside Membership. 

Take no meat whatever after the noon meal, and try to confine 
your meat eating to the breakfast only. 

At six o’clock take a half-pint of milk and as much rice as you 
can eat. Do this not only once, but every night for a year or 
more. It should become a fixed habit with you, if you have the 
least semblance of diseased nerves. 

Retire early; never later than ten, and sooner if you feel the 
need of sleep, or are real sleepy. 

Just as you are getting to bed, and after you have attended to 
cleaning the teeth, as well as all other duties, so that there will be 
no interruption, take a large glass of hot beef tea, strong and well 
made. Drink it as hot as you can take it, and drop at once into 
the recumbent position hereafter referred to. 

This diet should be maintained for years if you wish to be free 
from the dangers of neurasthenia. It is sure to cure you and to 
keep you cured, which is a great advantage; assuming of course 
that you pay attention to the other details of this treatment. 

In order to show the forms in which rice may be cooked and 
made attractive to the palate we append a few receipts: 

Do not consult your convenience or preference. 


FAULTY NERVES. 


203 


Toasted Rice. —Put boiled or steamed rice in a square pan. 
When cold cut it into slices. Dip each slice in melted butter and 
toast until a nice brown. These may be served plain or with 
grated cheese over them; or equal parts of grated cheese and 
mayonnaise dressing; mayonnaise dressing only; or cooked meat, 
fish or fowl minced. 

Steamed Rice. —Put one cupful of rice in a double boiler, add 
two cupfuls of boiling water. Steam until tender. It will take 
about forty minutes. Season with salt. When done set uncovered 
in the oven a minute to dry out a little. Milk may be used in¬ 
stead of the water; or Soup Stock may be used and gives a nice 
flavor to the rice when wished as a vegetable. 

Rice and Squash Timbales. —Mix together one cupful of stewed 
or baked Hubbard squash and one cupful of cooked rice. Add 
two well beaten eggs, and one cupful of milk. Season with salt 
and pepper. Pour into buttered timbale molds and set them in 
the oven in a pan of hot water. Bake twenty minutes. Serve 
with Cream Sauce. Stewed pumpkin may be used instead of 
squash. 

Imperial Rice Pudding. —Soak a third of a box of gelatine a 
half hour ih a half cupful of water. Put on one and a half pints 
milk in a double boiler. When boiling, stir in a half cupful of 
rice and a pinch of salt. Cook about thirty minutes; then stir 
in carefully a half cupful sugar and a teaspoonful vanilla. Re¬ 
move from the stove, and stir in the gelatine. When cool, stir 
in a pint of cream, whipped as for Whipped Cream. Pour into a 
mold, and set away to harden. Serve very cold. 

Rice Cream. —Soak a half box of gelatine in a pint of cold water 
for a half hour. Put on a quart of milk in a double boiler. When 
boiling, add one tablespoonful rice flour moistened in cold milk, 
stirring it in carefully to prevent lumping; also add four table¬ 
spoonfuls sugar. Stir on the stove for about five minutes; put in 
the gelatine, and stir until it is dissolved, then remove from the 
stove, and flavor with a teaspoonful vanilla. Stir until cold; then 
mix in the whites of two eggs frothed very stiff, and set away to 
harden. Serve cold. Whipped Cream may be used instead of the 
whites of eggs. 

Rice Souffle. —Work two tablespoonfuls of butter and five table¬ 
spoonfuls of sugar together until thoroughly blended and creamy; 
then beat in three tablespoonfuls of rice flour and the yolks of six 


204 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


eggs until very light. Put on a half pint of cream in a double 
boiler. When it is boiling, mix in the above mixture, stirring 
constantly until it thickens. Remove from the stove, and add a 
small pinch of salt and a teaspoonful of vanilla. Beat the whites 
of eggs to a very stiff froth, and lightly stir them in. Serve cold 
in a glass dish. 

Rice Meringue .—Boil a half cup of rice until tender, then drain 
in a colander. Work one cup of sugar and one tablespoonful of 
butter to a cream; then beat in the yolks of three eggs until very 
light and the juice of half a lemon. Stir a half pint of milk with 
the boiled rice; then add the above mixture. Turn the whole into 
a baking dish, and bake in a quick oven about fifteen minutes. 
Beat the whites of the three eggs until foamy; then add gradually 
three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, beating all the time, until 
stiff enough to stand alone. Heap this meringue over the top of 
the pudding, and set in the oven to brown. Serve cold in the 
dish in which it was baked. 

Baked Rice .—Put one-half cup rice (uncooked), one quart of 
milk and one-half cup sugar in a baking dish, and mix together; 
put it in the oven to bake; stir frequently while the rice is swell¬ 
ing. When the pudding has begun to thicken, stop stirring it. 
It should bake about three-quarters of an hour. Serve cold. 

Rice Custard Pudding .—Cook one cup of rice as for Boiled 
Rice. Beat four eggs with a cup of sugar until light; add a little 
salt, then a quart of milk. Mix this with the boiled rice, and 
pour into a baking dish. Flavor with one teaspoonful of vanilla, 
and over the top cut in small pieces a tablespoonful of butter. Set 
in the oven in a pan of boiling water, and bake until it thickens 
and a doubled broom splint run in the center of pudding will 
come out without custard adhering to it. 

Fruit Rice Balls .—Wash a pound of rice, then boil two quarts 
of water for thirty minutes, then drain. Pare and core one dozen 
apples. Fill the core space with sugar and a very little cinnamon, 
then carefully flouring the hands, form the rice around the apples. 
It is hard to start, but by frequently flouring the hands a white 
ball may be formed. Tie each one tightly in a small piece of 
floured cheese cloth. Put in a pot of cold water and boil forty 
minutes. Serve with cream or a sauce. Other fresh or preserved 
fruit can be used. 

Study the fruit question in your Inside Membership book. 


faulty nerves. 


2G5 


Rice Shells .—Take one cupful of boiled rice and if cold re-heat 
it letting it stand in a pan of boiling water. Add one table¬ 
spoonful of butter and beat until the butter is melted and thor¬ 
oughly mixed. Remove from the stove and add the well beaten 
yolk of an egg. Butter gem pans well and line the bottom and 
sides with the rice. A wooden spoon frequently dipped in hot 
water is of assistance in molding these shells. Lightly beat the 
white of the egg and brush each shell with it. Bake for ten min¬ 
utes in a cool oven. These may be filled with custard or whipped 
cream. 

The rice of the evening meals may be eaten with whipped cream, 
or with butter; and custards are also allowed, unless their use tends 
to prevent sleep. 

The use of skimmed milk is recommended in cases where there 
is still a persistent refusal of the system to come into a calm con¬ 
dition. It simply employs the skimmed milk wherever milk is 
stated in the diet not only for the ten days, but afterwards. The 
reason for this is that the lack of the cream tends all the more 
quickly to bring the nerves into a sluggish state. 

Where insanity is suspected, and it is merely of a nervous type, 
sour milk should always be used, and the diet set forth herein 
should be maintained all the time. The milk should be what is 
called clean sour; that is, it should be placed in a dry and cleanly 
place where it cannot be infected by other odors or causes to make 
it turn. Its effect upon the mind of a nervously unbalanced 
person is wonderful. We have been at work for three years upon 
these tests. They are not easily made; but we are almost fully 
convinced that sour milk will drive all the disturbing poisons out 
of the body, and lead to better health. There is no quicker way 
of building nerve-fiber than by taking three pints per day of clean 
sour milk. It should be whole milk and not skimmed if it is to 
be used sour. 

All milk and all cream should be sipped in doses of half-tea- 
spoonfuls. This saves forming curds in the stomach. A piece 
of old bread baken as advised should be chewed between each sip, 
if there is the least distress. The bread prevents the concentra¬ 
tion of the milk in curds, in case any enters the stomach. 

At the risk of too much repetition, we again state that one of 
the greatest causes of nervous weakness is the attack upon the 
nerve fibers during sleep. Night is the natural time for slumber. 


206 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


To be healing and grateful, all sleep must be sound; it must be 
free from irritating influences, whether the latter are sufficient to 
arouse the mind to consciousness or not. 

Blind irritation, like blind indigestion, is a condition where the 
functions of the body are interfered with but no pain is caused. 
Of all the dangerous kinds of dyspepsia the most to be feared is 
that which causes no distress. It makes its presence felt by an 
indirect process; a feeling that produces discomfort but no actual 
distress. It is one of the causes of dangerous neurasthenia. The 
taking of patent medicines and drugs of various kinds that dull 
the force of pain, is the worst of all evils; for pain is the signal 
of wrong, unfurled by nature as the safeguard of life and health. 
It holds the same relation to security that the scream or cry of 
alarm does to safety. The fact that the child cries when in dis¬ 
tress, or that the wife who is in the clutch of the negro violater is 
able to call for help by her screams, is proof that nature has given 
these means for securing aid. So it is with the feeling of pain. 
Take drugs enough to dull that feeling and you will take away 
the knowledge of the wrongs that your habits are committing. 
Blind indigestion is much more dangerous than the severe aches 
and pains that follow indiscretion in eating. The damage is 
being done whether you feel it or not. The pie-crust, the hot roll, 
the pancake, or other error of diet, that goes to the dulled and half 
paralyzed stomach will not cause pain in some persons, but the 
wrong is being done the nervous system, and the only evidence of 
it may be in the presence of one more, step towards neurasthenia. 

In the same way all foods that are in the process of intes¬ 
tinal digestion may set up blind irritation to the nerves, in case 
they are of the muscle-making kind. The muscles are held in 
place and kept to their work by fine networks of nerves; and food, 
like meat-tissue, or cheese, or cake, or pastry, or anything that is 
difficult of digestion, will set up an irritation that will continue all 
through sleep. The next morning there is a feeling of weakness 
of the nerves, but the cause is not apparent, for the night has been 
spent in sleep. 

By and by comes the time when nature, thus irritated beyond 
endurance, refuses to allow the nerves to pass into the slumber 
state. Insomnia, with all its dangers and discomforts, sets in and 
refuses to give way to any form of treatment. 

This condition is always part of neurasthenia. 


faulty nerves. 


207 


Most persons who suffer from this malady refuse to do anything 
for themselves until they are on the verge of insanity. Then they 
set about making an effort to get back to health. But health is 
elusive to them; even more to them than to other sufferers, for 
they have defied the laws of nature to the very last, nor would thej 
reform now if there were any way of evading the regime that is 
necessary. 

Most persons believe that the nervousness comes from the mind. 
The books and experts are very explicit in their declaration that 
the mind must be given rest, and that all worry must cease. It is 
almost always set down as true that worry precedes a disordered 
state of the stomach and blood. 

The settlement of this question will do much towards the settle¬ 
ment of the best methods of procedure in the effort to cure. 

It can be proved that nervousness prevents digestion. It can 
as easily be proved that bad judgment in eating causes nervous 
indigestion. The boy who does not recall the time when he ate 
cake just before retiring at night, and thereupon dreamed of 
dragons and other enemies of his peace, has a weak memory. 
Here is a lady who ate rich cake the other evening; here is a 
man who indulged in mince pie late at night; here are children 
who filled their stomachs with ice-cream at the party; all are 
sickly for the next week. Let them keep up the errors and they 
will soon become nervous dyspeptics. Let them attain to that 
condition as a chronic one and they will soon be unable to get a 
sound night’s sleep. Then the mind and nerves will begin to 
break down together, for they are made to run side by side as com¬ 
panion functions. 

These are facts, not theories. 

In this age when a sensible diet is almost unknown who is to 
say that nervousness is a cause and not a result? 

We have found many persons who were really honest in their 
willingness to confess the fact that they had lived largely on the 
articles of food that are forbidden in our chapter on the subject 
of forbidden foods in the book of Inside Membership of the ninety- 
third edition. They then were sensible enough to make the effort 
to ascertain what relation there was between a wrong diet and 
nervousness, for they were wretched victims of the latter malady. 
In the place of a direct treatment we asked them to make the 
experiment of living up to the most sensible diet within their con- 


208 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


trol and they did so. They all, without a single exception, re¬ 
ported to us that their nervousness had gradually decreased and 
had entirely disappeared. We then went further and selected a 
number of neurotics who had charged their inability to sleep to 
the fact that they had been the subjects of misfortune and worr}r. 
They said that things were constantly going against them. This 
habit of worrying they thought was enough to account for their 
weak condition, their insomnia and their neurasthenia. Doctors 
say, “ Do not worry.” What kind of advice is this to give to a 
neurotic? Do not worry. Why not say, Do not think? Worry¬ 
ing is only a special way of thinking. Some persons think along 
pleasant lines; some are wholly indifferent to the morrow and 
know but little of to-day; others see the long vista of years ahead 
in which it is possible to encounter dread disaster in myriad forms, 
and they make a business of not missing any of them. 

The condition of the health will determine which of these three 
ways you are to think. Take, for instance, that great class of 
nervous persons who suffer from worrying and anxiety—those men 
and women who indulge too much in marriage excesses; and you 
have the one most prolific cause of neurasthenia, except a per¬ 
verse diet. It is in fact a race between the modern abuse at the 
table and the long established abuse in the marriage bed. Once 
the diet of humanity was plain and wholesome, and the neurotics 
came from the other class only. Now they come from the two 
ranks in about equal proportion. Either condition will bring on 
the malady, and then the experts come along and say that worrying 
is the cause of it. Do not worry. 

Why, the fact is that every such person who rises from the bed of 
debauch is in a worrying mood. A physician who attended nearly 
all the families in a certain park district of a great city said that 
he could tell who of them had been guilty of the sexual act to 
excess by the fact that things went very blue for them the next 
day. He met many or most of his patients each day, and they lost 
no time in stating their mental condition. 

Few are able to abate this sexual excess. Others do not choose 
to. But, in as far as they are honest with themselves, they will 
soon find out that their worrying days are those that follow such 
acts. We have for the last fifteen years lived close to a well-to-do 
family, where this malady has cast a severe shadow through the 
death by self-violence of the wife, says a leading physician in re- 


faulty nerves. 


209 


porting to us. The man weighs two hundred pounds. The wife 
was a woman of a hundred or about. The man, as far as sexual 
fineness was concerned, was a cart horse, a sort of stud of brutal 
coarseness in such matters, and yet he stood well in his business 
position, and was accounted brainy and sensible. 

This piece of horseflesh insisted on having his rights not less 
than four times a week. All the while his wife grew more nervous. 
She told her physician that the husband was killing her by slow 
degrees. She made this statement: “ It was by accident that I 
discovered that I felt depressed and excessively nervous the morn¬ 
ings afterwards. It was then that I worried. There has never 
been any hesitation on my part towards my husband, and I think 
I had the usual degree of enjoyment; but the next morning after I 
felt in low spirits and would worry. Everything displeased me. 
Everything went wrong. One day he was called to another city 
and did not return for four days. I wondered what made me 
feel so much more cheerful along the last of his absence, although 
I was very desirous of his return. My nervous condition was in 
much better tone. But the same worrying came later on when he 
was back. On several occasions he had to be away for a week at 
a time, and my doctor told me that I was getting better. I did 
not then know or believe that the cause of it was my husband’s 
absence. My sickness was of only two or three days’ duration 
each month or six weeks, and the usual relief that a wife gets 
did not come to me except in intervals that were too short. At 
last I began to associate my lack of worrying with my husband’s 
absence, and I am convinced that my only hope of cure is in 
that direction.” Later on the doctor told the husband, but the 
latter did not choose to believe it. When the wife saw that the 
caution was of no avail she killed herself, as she declared that 
she did not wish to drag her life through so much suffering for 
no purpose. In her letter to her husband, the last she ever wrote, 
she included these remarks: “ I could not ask you to be more 

lenient with me. Your nature required indulgence to excess and 
I have had to suffer. It is not your fault. When the doctor came 
to you with the suggestion that you should keep from me until 
my health was restored, you refused. Then it was that I saw the 
hopelessness of my future with you.” 

This is not a rare nor an exceptional case. The same history 
is being enacted every day in some place or another, and men as 
14 


210 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


well as women are paying the penalty in wrecked nerves and 
minds. A prominent man who has just startled the country by his 
suicide was known to have been perfectly happy in his family, and 
successful in his business; but he had a beautiful wife who loved 
his companionship and slowly he undermined his nervous power. 
He told his physician that, on the mornings after indulgence, he 
felt discouraged, and that this feeling had come on after many 
years, for he never knew depression for the first twenty years of 
his married life. It took time to break down the brain and 
nerves; and then the condition of anxiety following each night of 
indulgence was a constant reminder of the cause. When he was 
away for a week he found that he had no tendency to worry or 
to feel anxiety. But his wife held him closely to her side, as she 
did not like to have him absent. He could not tell her, as he was 
sensitive on the subject. All this was made known to the phy¬ 
sician when it was too late to do any good. 

In the same way the stomach will undermine the tone of the 
nerves and of the brain. Dj^spepsia produces irritability, and ir¬ 
ritability produces insanity. It is one of the first signs of mental 
breakdown. Nothing will make a man or woman irritable so 
readily as an attack of painful or blind indigestion; and, next 
to this cause, the other error we have mentioned is the most 
prolific. 

A person may be chaste and enter upon the state of neurasthenia; 
but we would not readily believe that any married man or woman 
who was the subject of such disease was moderate in the use of 
their marriage ‘relationship. The haggard faces of men and 
women who would otherwise be bright and strong, the weak, puny 
forms, the pinched features of those who are heavy and well built, 
the yellow hue, the muddy eyes, the long-drawn countenances, all 
tell the tale of abuse of the sexual act. 

Do not deny it. 

Don’t worry. 

This means that you are not to think. 

The diet we have suggested in the first part of this treatment 
will put the mind in a non-thinking mood, and it will be very 
hard for you to do any thinking between the hour of supper and 
that of retiring for the night. Tt is all right to think during the 
daytime. 

The treatment for insomnia contains many valuable suggestions, 


FAULTY NERVES. 


211 


But just as sure as you begin to think, you will begin to worry, 
for that is the way the invalid thinks who has this malady. You 
would not be able to stop worrying. Physicians say take a trip 
to some other place; or go to some different house; shut your¬ 
self up from your family; do not allow your usual friends to call 
upon you, etc., etc. The novelty will, for a time, change the 
current of your thoughts, and we know that change of conditions 
and surroundings will aid some; but just as sure as you are a 
neurotic, just so sure are you going to worry. There will always 
arise something to worry about. The servants will not be doing 
right; the dressmaker will be made so fearfully nervous by your 
fussing that she will spoil your dress, and you will then have a 
genuine thing to worry about; someone will cross your purposes, 
and you will think the world is in a conspiracy against you; some 
wrong or accident will be construed into an intended affront; some¬ 
one is trying to give you less than value received; and so it will go 
on, in one long procession, from morning till night. And it is 
not true that the neurotic worries about trifles or empty things. 
She will have due cause for all the worrying she does. Her fuss¬ 
ing will set people against her, and those who otherwise would have 
done just the right thing will now do it wrong, and the genuine 
cause of worrying will arise. 

This fact is explained on psychological grounds. For instance, 
take the case of the woman who could never get good servants. 
She asked a friend to let her have hers when the friend gave up 
house-keeping; and all these tried and faithful employes of over 
ten years’ steady service in one family were not able to please the 
neurotic. When asked what the matter was, the invalid woman 
pointed out shortcomings that were true; not one was invented; 
and the servants all frankly admitted they were true; but they said 
they could not help doing that way with that woman; and they 
emphasized the word THAT. So it is seen that the neurasthenic 
creates for herself the very wrongs that give her just cause to 
worry. It is an endless chain, a circle that goes on forever. 

There are but two real causes, and they are a diet that consists 
of the foods that are forbidden in Chapter 21 of the book of Inside 
Membership; or else in abuse of the marriage relationship. A 
person who lived up to the standard of high regime in that book 
would never have the malady; and the adoption of that regime 
will go a long way toward a cure. 


212 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


But there is the other side of the question. 

It is true that when a person thinks in one line only, or is given 
to one side of life, as when the business interests tower over all 
else in life, or the religious character is wholly neglected or is 
given sole attention, or one study is pursued too closely, then the 
functions of the stomach will be injured in their work; and haste or 
too much care in one direction will take away all interest in the 
health questions. When a man is too busy to have no time to study 
what he ought to eat, he is sure to go to some disaster in his health. 
His daily paper, his business, his pleasures, his plans ahead, all 
have claim on his mind; but he ridicules the idea that he must 
know something of the laws of health, or of the diet that is best for 
him. He eats what he likes, and thus he gets out of order. He 
charges the indigestion to his cares in business; he thinks his 
nervousness is due to the strain on his mind in daily life; and so 
he keeps going far away from an understanding of the real cause. 
Then comes the break in his health, and he is compelled to study 
what to eat and how to throw off the danger. Oftentimes it is too 
late. 

While it is true that all the functions of the body, digestion 
and circulation included, are out of order when the nerves are ab¬ 
normal, no one has a right to draw an unfounded conclusion that 
the nervous weakness is the cause. One condition may cause the 
other. But the other fact is not to be forgotten that the nervous 
condition is almost always influenced by the tone of the stomach. 

Errors in eating play havoc with the whole body. 

It cannot be doubted that nervous weakness will lower the power 
of digestion or any other function; nor that indigestion will 
weaken the nerves. The point which we wish to make clear is that 
the trouble starts in the stomach. A long series of proofs es¬ 
tablish this fact. In the same line of proof is the other fact that, 
in exact proportion as the tone of the stomach can be improved, in 
the same proportion will the conditions of neurasthenia be over¬ 
come. 

When you find a person with perfect digestive habits, you will 
find one who never worries, and who cannot worry. This fact is 
so important that it ought to be made to sink deep in the mind of 
every individual. Let it be the corner-stone of your methods. 
You cannot deny it, for, if you do, you will be setting up a mere 
opinion against a mass of proof that is mountain high. Any 


faulty nerves. 2ia 

thoughtful person will at once admit the self-evident truth which 
is embodied in this statement: A person whose digestion is per¬ 
fect never worries, and cannot worry if he tries. Things may go 
wrong in an avalanche, but the perfect condition of the stomach 
will buoy up the individual against all odds. We have abundant 
proof of this law, and every physician knows it to be true. To 
offset it, some will say that worrying will put the stomach out of 
order, for it causes digestion to cease or to become very weak; but 
the real fact is that there must be an abuse of the digestive 
powers before things begin to look blue. All dyspeptics know how 
closely allied their stomach condition is to their mental operations. 
It has been aptly said that the first era of depression was the wake 
or after-action of the nerves following indiscretion in eating so 
long continued that the tone of the stomach had at length suc¬ 
cumbed. The growing injury to that organ can be readily felt as 
the errors of diet are continued; and, as the function gets weaker, 
the climax is noticed in the clouding of the mental horizon. 

Then worrying begins. 

And not till then. 

Study yourself and find these things out. 

The old adage of the Greek philosopher, Know Thyself, is the 
first law of common sense. To know yourself you must know the 
exact effects of your foods on your health, both, of mind and body. 
You should know when your nerves are being weakened by in¬ 
fluences which you should seek to control. Sickness is a multi¬ 
form team of steeds that drive themselves when you slacken the 
reins. If you keep a tight rein you will direct and control 
them; otherwise they will proceed in their own way and land you 
at the edge of the precipice. 

Let the invalid who moans the condition that verges on insomnia 
answer the question: How much have you studied the laws of 
health as applicable to yourself? And the reply will be, Not at 
all, as we do not think it concerns us. The doctors are educated 
for that purpose. This is not true. The doctor who will cure you 
of insomnia or nervous prostration or other condition of faulty 
nerves, must first of all make you a student of yourself and of 
the conditions that affect your nervous health; and, if you can say 
that you do not care to study such things, the physician must tell 
you that there is no other way. 

Dead treatments never cure. 


214 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 

In conformity with this view, let us say that, during the past 
m J y ears when the progress of medicine has been the greatest in 
all the history of the world, there have been no less than eight 
thousand great physicians who have been studying up the subject 
of the cure of neurasthenia; and, to the surprise of the outside 
student, all these eight thousand specialists have been arriving at 
one focus. They have not done much mutual work or study; 
each has been desirous of finding out facts by himself; and they 
have all found out the one fact on which they have all agreed as if 
they were a unit: The stomach is the seat of the effort to cure the 
disease. Hence all specialists in this malady start with the edu¬ 
cation of the stomach through diet. The importance of this 
fact cannot be overestimated. 

Set this down in your mind: In proportion as you can improve 
or elevate the tone of the stomach, in the same proportion you will 
make it impossible to worry, or to lose sleep, or to get nervously 
weak. 

But you cannot improve the tone of the stomach unless you pay 
attention to high regime. Nor can you succeed if you are guilty 
of venery. These are fundamental truths. Give them attention 
and then proceed to victory. 

If you do not like to hem in your desires and your selfishness to 
this extent, but prefer to have the cure poured down your throat 
by the doctor, then draw your will and make your preparations 
for demise. There is no other outcome. The past has made the 
history complete and its monuments will stand to the end of time. 

THE REST CURE. 

This is one of the attendant methods of effecting temporary re¬ 
lief m cases that are acute. It is given here in the most success¬ 
ful of its plans; for there are a dozen or more kinds of rest cure. 
The following will prove helpful, but only for the purposes of re¬ 
lief as stated. The permanent cure must be built upon methods 
that deal with regime. 

1. The principles of the REST CURE are two: The patient 
must not use any muscles voluntarily, and must receive outside 
aid in supplying the necessary substitutes of action. In other 
words, there must be exercise, but it must not require an ounce of 
the patient’s strength. 


Faulty nerves. 


215 

2. To effect these results, the patient is put in bed and kept 
there six weeks. During the first ten days there must be no 
lifting of the arms, and no rising, even to a sitting posture. You 
can see that this involves attention from some one who has the time 
to give to the patient. 

3. After ten days there must be a very gradual return to activity, 
but all in bed. The arms may be lifted and the body may take a 
sitting position. 

During the first ten days, when there is to he no motion at all 
on the part of the patient, the attendant must do the following: 

A Ralston Bath must be given before breakfast, and not after it. 
The habit of bathing after eating is dangerous, if there is any 
weakness of the nerves, and paralysis has followed the act. The 
whole power of the nervous system is needed to digest the food, 
for there is but little such energy at its best. Bathing is a tax 
on the energy of the nerves, as any neurotic well knows. The 
Ralston Bath must consist of the use of the hottest water that can 
be borne. It may be gradually increased in heat as it is applied 
until no more is endurable. Only one section of the body must 
be bathed at a time. For this purpose the body is divided into 
the following sections: 

A. The head, neck and chest, as far down as the ribs extend. 

B. The waist and hips to the thighs. 

C. The legs and feet. 

The first section may be bathed in the morning just before 
breakfast, the second at noon just before dinner and the third at 
the close of the day just before supper. 

The water should not be hot when applied to the scalp, but it is 
not necessary to bathe that part of the head. 

The pores are opened by this use of very hot water, provided they 
are gradually subjected to increased heat. The best plan is to 
find out what temperature may be endured, then use that; then 
make it one or two degrees hotter, and apply that; then increase the 
temperature by adding more water, using that; and so proceed to 
the end. 

Some ice water must be at hand, which contains floating pieces 
of fine ice. While yet the body is hot from the use of the hot 
water, apply the ice water in small places with a very small sponge, 
and keep dipping it into the ice water so that the whole of the 
section that has been thus bathed may be subjected to the opposite 


216 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 

temperature. No time must be lost. This can be done in less 
than ten seconds. Then, as the skin is chilled and contracted, let 
the water from a basin of lukewarm water be applied with a large 
sponge, and followed by more of the ice water. Repeat this 
with water that is not quite lukewarm, and now end by applying 
the ice water freely with the large sponge. Rub dry with a 
coarse towel, and chafe the skin until it is all aglow. This will 
end the bathing of the section. 

Now let the breakfast be fed by the attendant. 

In fifteen minutes after it is eaten, let the attendant massage 
the bathed section. This is done by lifting the skin between the 
tips of the fingers and the wrist or palm; also pressing down into 
the skin with the clinched fist; also laying the whole hand flatwise 
on the skin and jarring it forward and back, and right and left 
for a minute; also making efforts to move in parts of circles with 
the pressed flat hand; but there must be no rubbing in the mas¬ 
sage, for it deals with the inner flesh and not the surface of the 
body. Then let the little finger edge of the hands be used in the 
chopping motion all over the section. All these massage move¬ 
ments should be repeated until a whole hour has been spent in the 
performance. It will be supposed that the attendant gets the 
exercise; and this is true; but the effect on the inner tissue of the 
body is very great if all the foregoing variations of motion are 
faithfully performed. 

Just before the noon meal another section of the body is to be 
bathed in just the same way as already described; then, after the 
meal is over, another hour of massage is to be given. At the close 
of the day the third section is to be bathed before the meal; and the 
massage for another hour is to be given. 

This gives the patient three hours per day of exercise of a nega¬ 
tive but most beneficial character; besides the advantages to the 
system of the Ralston Bath. 

For the first day or two the patient will grow weary of the 
monotony; but after that the days will come and go rapidly, and 
there will be a feeling of expectant hope of perfect cure; for the 
acute form of the nervousness will be gone. 

The diet must be the same as already given. 

After the tenth day, the patient may use the arms and legs and 
may begin to sit up little by little; but not with sudden activity. 
Let a full month pass before there is great exertion. Then there 


FAULTY NERVES. 


217 


may be self-massage and self-bathing as far as these can be done 
by the patient. In the fifth week on the first day the patient may 
put the legs out of bed; then, on the next day, the feet may touch 
the floor for a few seconds; and gradually the use of the limbs 
will be regained. 

When the six weeks have passed there should be a full adoption 
of high regime as stated in the book of Inside Membership, and this 
should be maintained for a full year. 

There is no case of nervous prostration that will not be cured 
by this treatment. It is severe and taxing and requires observa¬ 
tion of its provisions; but life is better than premature death. 

To come back to the subject of worrying, we have had occasion 
to follow out many interesting cases. In over six thousand it has 
been seen that when the mood of worry or anxiety is on the patient, 
the respiration is almost unobservable. It has been, and still is, 
the subject of wonder, why worry will stop digestion, why bad 
news will take the pleasure from the feelings and loweT the 
action of the heart, or why anxiety and depression long persisted in 
will bring on anaemia and atrophy. 

In trying to get at the reason for these influences of the mind 
over the functions of life, we must find some connection between 
the former and the latter. It is true that disappointment will 
suddenly check the flow of the gastric juice to the stomach; 
and it is also as well known that all the membranes will become in¬ 
active or will so far lessen their operations as to become abnormal, 
under the . stress of a shock to the expectations of the mind. These 
are not theories, but facts that occur in every well understood life. 
No person is exempt from them. The slightest attention to the 
matter will show proofs in abundance. 

Now comes the theorist and says that worry must be the cause 
of ill health and weak digestion and faulty nerves. Why set up 
such a theory? The answer is that it is plainly seen that worry 
does all these things. No, it is not. Worry will stop the action 
of the stomach and lower the power of the heart, but there is 
always a quick rebound when the organs are in their normal con¬ 
dition. It takes a great blow to interfere with healthful condi¬ 
tions. 

On the other hand the weaker the digestion the more easily the 
mind will worry. As the disordered alimentary canal becomes 
worse, the merest trifles will become a source of anxiety, and every- 


218 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


thing will go wrong. Things that, in a body that knows no indiges¬ 
tion, would be mole hills of insignificance, become at once moun¬ 
tains of seriousness when there is dyspepsia of gastric disturb¬ 
ances. 

A man or woman can bring on the weakness of the stomach by 
constantly eating the foods that are forbidden in chapter twenty- 
one of the book of Inside Membership. Continued indiscretion 
in eating will bring on the very conditions that cause worry; and 
the latter mood will go on increasing as the stomach is abused. 
But, on the other hand, no person can bring on the habit of worry¬ 
ing by any effort in that direction. 

Physicians say, Do not worry. They tell their patients that 
they must not let go; which means that the patients are supposed 
to be able to control their tendencies to worry. But this mood is 
the reflex action of the functions themselves, and it would be a 
brave mind indeed that could hold up and not let go. There is 
no power but that which is found in the development of personal 
magnetism and self-magnetism that can endure the strain of the, 
disordered functions on the mind, and you cannot advise sick peo¬ 
ple to take up a course of training as a means of cure. They are in 
that condition which forbids an effort of such a character as prac¬ 
tice and training. 

It is only in tendencies of the nerves to go into hysteria that 
the will power has control. In fact there is no other cure for the 
hysterical person except through the mind. An illustration of this 
power is seen in the following cases: A young lady was prone to 
weep on the slightest occasion. She applied to a firm for a posi¬ 
tion. They knew of her tendency to weep easily, and, while being 
willing to employ her, they wished to cure that trouble; and so told 
her that they would give her the position were it not for the fact 
that she was a cry-baby. This worried her considerably; so much 
so in fact that she could not cry, and the result was that she kept 
watch over her habits and completely cured them. Hacf the 
remark not been made as it was, she might have gone on for years 
growing more and more hysterical all the time. 

In another case a wife who could not influence her husband in 
any other way, and who knew that he could not resist woman’s 
tears, made a point of weeping whenever ho scolded her or crossed 
her wishes. In a year or two she had become hysterical in full 
degree, laughing and weeping by turns on the least provocation. 


FAULTY NERVES. 


219 


Her condition had been brought upon her by her own methods, as 
she had never before shown the slightest indications of hysteria. 
The husband consulted a specialist, who advised the following plan 
of cure. The doctor knew the wife’s propensity for listening at 
the door; and he held consultations with the husband for the 
benefit of the wife. She heard every word, as they planned to 
have her treated for tumor due to hysteria. She did not know that 
such a thing was unlikely; and the deep secrecy of the conversa¬ 
tions seemed to prove to her that they were to act suddenly and 
without her consent. It was agreed that if a certain medicine did 
not cure her habits of weeping and laughing in a month, she was to 
be drugged and operated upon with the knife. The medicine was 
water with some harmless coloring matter in it. She kept her 
counsels, and took the medicine faithfully, as she had a horror 
of being cut open. Not only did the cure come, but it came at 
once. 

Hundreds of other cases confirm this principle. 

In almost every case where the disposition of the patient can be 
worked upon by methods that do not create suspicion, the de¬ 
termination to get over the trouble will bring success. 

This shows clearly that hysteria is due to encouragement on the 
part of the patient. She can make or break the habit. As long 
as she can be nursed and petted, she will go on increasing the 
habit until she is a nuisance to herself and to others. All weak 
women like sympathy. There are few women who do not know 
the efficacy of tears well shed. They lack magnetism, and in its 
place they use the other weapon of power, the tyranny of tears. 

A certain number of women in every locality have personal 
magnetism, or the ability to influence other women, and men as 
well, by the charms of their sex, or the subtle life within the 
nerves; and there never was a case, and never will he, where a 
magnetic woman had hysterics. She uses the natural gifts of a 
nobler power. It is the one who lacks personal magnetism and 
self-magnetism who will seek attention and sympathy by the use 
of tears. 

You may follow every such case, and give it an honest study, and 
you will find these two laws working through them: the magnetic 
woman has a power that does not need hysterics to gain attention 
and sympathy, while the unmagnetic woman is compelled to shed 
tears when she is affronted or piqued. From this giving way iij 


220 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


one direction she soon learns to give way on the laughing side of 
her nature. For the two operations, laughing and crying, are 
made in the same way: the diaphragm vibrates in one as in the 
other. In laughing its motion is more rapid, and the effect is 
to produce the brighter mood. Many persons can laugh till they 
cry, which is an old fact; and many others cry themselves into 
laughter. Let a woman place her hand to her face, and cover her 
eyes with a handkerchief so that her features are not seen, and then 
let her make the sound of mild laughing or mild crying, and no 
person can tell the difference. This accounts for the fact that 
the hysterical woman laughs and crys at intervals or alternately; 
and she goes off as readily into a fit of laughter as into one of weep¬ 
ing. It all begins, however, with weeping for sympathy; and this 
soon educates the diaphragm, or floor of the lungs, to let go on the 
least provocation. There is much philosophy in the study of 
hysterical women. A few men have feminine minds, as is seen 
in the great work on the Two Sexes, and they let go as easily when 
they educate their moods in the same way. 

But this is not the kind of nervousness that is born of worrying. 
It is true that the hysterical woman will let go at any cause, 
worrying as often at nothing as at an overwhelming catastrophe. 
Indeed it is claimed by some writers on the subject that severe 
calamities are cures of the habit. This has been the case in al¬ 
most every instance where well-to-do women have suddenly become 
poor, and have been compelled to do hard and humiliating work. 
The tendency to hysterics has entirely disappeared. 

There is so much that seems cruel and heartless in these views 
that we dislike to repeat them. The law that is at work in woman 
nature is the creation of a power that we do not attempt to analyze. 
That it is a law seems to be admitted on all sides. 

But, whatever may be the facts in connection with hysteria, it 
cannot be justly claimed that neurasthenia is controllable by the 
will, or that worrying can be prevented when the stomach is out 
of order. 

Much has been stated in all books that treat of nervous weakness 
to the effect that the MIN’D is largely responsible for the condi¬ 
tion of the nerves. Advice by the ton is given to sufferers, telling 
them to keep the mind on subjects that will not lead to worry. 
Try to forget business and all matters that cause a tax on the 
thoughts and attention. 


FAULTY NERVES. 


221 


Some years ago, Ralstonism discovered the peculiar law that, if 
the muscles of one part of the body were severely taxed, and then 
another part of the body were given as vigorous exercise, the 
former part would become rested. For instance, if a person were 
to stand on one leg and raise and lower the body until exhaustion 
seemed at hand, and then, without sitting, were to stand on the 
other leg and repeat the action of raising and lowering the body, 
the first leg would lose all its weariness; whereas, on the other 
hand, if the body were to rest immediately after the use of the 
first leg, would be made sore and lame from the unusual exer¬ 
tion. This is due to the fact that the blood is called from the 
first to the second part of the body, and weariness is relieved. 

This law may be tested and proved in a few minutes by any 
person. It plays an important part in many ingenious exercises 
in the great system of Ralston Physical Culture that is now in 
vogue in all parts of the civilized world. 

Ralstonism also discovered the law that, if the mind were taxed 
by one line of severe thinking and then rested, the brain would 
go on throbbing and would refuse to be quieted; but, on the other 
hand, if the mind were made to pass from one line of mental in¬ 
terest to another, and still on to another, and kept changing through 
a series of useful and valuable employment, the over-taxed por¬ 
tion of the brain would be rested and revived. This has been 
made the subject of the most careful tests during many years, 
and is still under the supervision of a number of investigators 
who seek the solution of problems by its aid. 

The human mind naturally demands certain excitement of its 
faculties in many directions. To arouse its attention in one 
direction only, as is the case with the nervous business man, or 
with the nervous housekeeper, or with the nervous bookkeeper, or 
with the nervous musician, or any other nervous individual, is to 
prevent the relief of the blood circulation and throbbing that com¬ 
pel the thoughts to remain active in one line only. Hence when 
you cannot sleep at night you will find that your mind is thinking 
of some one line of things that causes you to remain awake. If 
you had a variety of mental interests you would get relief at once. 
But the variety must be arranged along the lines that nature 
seeks to establish in every human being. Certain kinds of well- 
balanced mental interests are to be sought, and they may be 
briefly stated under the following plan: 


222 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


Humanity was not created for continuous indoor life. Nature 
also includes pure food, glame and cheerfulness; so that it is not 
separated from the cardinal points of health. Of course we do not 
expect our members to change their habits very much; but a little 
step taken occasionally toward the right direction is very helpful. 
Also let nature be studied, thought of, participated in, and made 
a frequent companion. 

No person can expect to get health and happiness who turns 
day into night. The human body is made up of vegetable cells 
and the same laws apply to both. No gardener would put his plant 
in a closed, dark room in the daytime, and give it its only light 
and activity of cultivation at night. 

"Rest not, haste not” during the growing, active hours of the 
day, is the modified, but accurate proverb of the best humanity. 
The body was not made for idleness. It has a multitude of mus¬ 
cles, and their possible faculties are countless. 

Play is the impulse of youth. It is the comedy of the mind, 
the heart and the muscles. All kinds of animal life indulge in 
play. There should be a play-hour for adults; and it has been 
amply proven that the longer in life a person keeps up the play-im¬ 
pulse the greater will be the tendency to youthful conditions. 
Cards, games of chance, and other inactive amusements are not 
play; they, as a rule, are hurtful to mind and body. 

Work should never he made slavery, or mere drudging to it. 
Some persons possess brains that are incapable of education, and 
they are designed by nature to do the drudgery of life. The 
natural rule is this: When a person’s brain is incapable of 
progress in the study of mathematics or language, that individual 
is intended by nature to do the menial work for others who can 
make use of the mind. But this does not mean that brainy peo¬ 
ple shall not work. The brainier the man or woman the greater 
demand should be made upon the muscles by way of balance; but 
all the work should be of the skilled order, and not in the line 
of drudgery. Each finger and thumb is a separate piece of machin¬ 
ery, not intended to he used all the time together or in groups. 
The skilled work of weaving, knitting, embroidering, painting, 
carving, chiselling, making lace, and scores of other useful or 
dainty home tasks that were once indulged in by refined and beauti¬ 
ful women, are splendid employments to revive; and every man 
should spend an hour or two each day in manipulations of the 


E AC LTV NERVES. 


223 


fingers that call for skill. Every variety of muscular change is 
reflected in the brain; and the brain builds the face; hence the best 
types of female beauty and manly virility are found among those 
who employ the muscles skilfully, other qualities being the same. 
No skilful man or woman has an ugly, homely or repulsive face. 

Cultivate art. This means the development of taste and judg¬ 
ment in all things in the home, in dress, and in social functions 
that arouse a true appreciation in the mind. It includes the 
study of harmony, design, symmetry and other elements of beauty. 

Mathematics ought to be mastered by every man and woman, for 
the sake of the strength it will give to the brain and the depth it 
will give to the mind. It was the chief study of George Washing¬ 
ton; for he was a surveyor. It has more branches and uses than 
any other accomplishment. It measures all the earth; it is the 
sailor’s guide at sea; it is the basis of railroading and engineering; 
it is nearly all there is of astronomy; it is architecture, which is 
one of the most beautiful of studies; it is business, and banking, 
and bookkeeping, and many other things. What we refer to in this 
book is not a special branch; but a little general practice in 
some line of mathematics, just enough each day to keep the brain 
strong. Take examples in your old arithmetic, or in algebra; and 
go through a few of them daily. If your brain surfaces have been 
made shallow by gossip, or novel reading, or newspaper gush, you 
will hate mathematics. 

Cultivate history, for it is a correct and impartial statement 
of the important doings of the world, not only of past ages, but 
also of yesterday and to-day. People, however, prefer gossip; and 
the public press is taking advantage of this abnormal spot that 
dwells in most brains, and is feeding it the sewerage of sensations, 
crimes, horrors, suicides, sarcasm, cartoons, caricature, gambling- 
race-news, and everything else that the most depraved motives can 
concoct in the form of mental garbage, and serve on the platter 
of literary imbecility. The press might be a valuable exponent 
of news. The mind that is well-balanced should appreciate the 
true nature of the study of history, and should keep in touch with 
current events. 

Cultivate literature. This means choice, elevating reading, as 
opposed to the cheap novel and sensational news just referred to. 

Study language. The human mind was made for the study of 
language, and the brain has a very large department devoted to 


224 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHT. 


the possibilities of this study, which is generally neglected in toto. 
One of the most satisfying of all accomplishments is the acquisi¬ 
tion of the ability to speak in another tongue; and, to the mind 
that is familiar only with the diction of the home and street, a 
broader English is another language. 

Music is natural to all normal individuals. One need not sing 
or play, if not so inclined, but there should be a wholesome love 
for real music. We believe in the effective power of classical 
music, and not in the usefulness of the cheaper slang song, and rag 
time of the age. The latter are the legitimate fruit of the shal¬ 
lowness of mind referred to in previous pages in this chapter. 
Variety of music has its value; and the ballad airs are really 
classical. Yet the mind of the great public lingers longest over 
the jingle of the coon song, just as the shallow pools of thought 
find the cartoons and caricatures of the press good material for 
the caliber of brain they possess. 

Cultivate a love for poetry. Every true mind loves flowers, 
whether in song, in the garden, or in literature. When there 
is a love for flowers and music, when there is an appreciation 
of the refinements that make men and women gentle, then there is 
always a keen desire for the flower-garden of literature—poetry. 

Every healthy mind appreciates the beauties of nature. They 
stir the soul of the true woman and honest man. They have no 
effect on other people. The most beautiful garden that ever 
bloomed might be passed in silence and total darkness by the 
individual who gets mental pabulum from the gush and trash of 
the daily sewerage of newspaper and novel. There is no happi¬ 
ness except in the enjoyment of the things that bloom or har¬ 
monize with them; beauty in field, garden, landscape, sky, picture, 
art, dress, furnishings, adornment, and the elevated diction of 
prose and refinement of poetry. People who find it possible to 
appreciate these things live in a world by themselves; all others 
wonder what there is to enjoy in them, and caricature them in 
garbs of ridicule. A beautiful mind neither creates nor enjoys 
ridicule or caricature, no matter at what they may be aimed. 

The foregoing plan has been well tested as a means of giving the 
brain its greatest strength. It is but one side of the regime of 
a high standard of living. But it holds its part with the other 
portions of the great scheme of building up the conditions of life 
that are sure to bring relief from neurasthenia. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904. by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special ® Treatment 

NUMBER 3 



| Fidelity fflen^opy 1 



We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 

This Treatment is private. It is rented to the Inside Member 
to whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The member has no right to loan this mono¬ 
graph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or to come 
into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the same. 
This rule does not forbid the use of the Treatment by the member in 
behalf of any child or aged person who is actually in the member’s 
household; but all others must become Inside Members of the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help of this Treat¬ 
ment. To become such members will not cost anything, as may be 
seen by consulting the final pages of the book of Inside Member¬ 
ship, if the steps are taken as there directed. 

15 


(225) 




§26 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 


THE GREAT MEMORY TREATMENT. 

A faulty memory is a disease. 

In a state of perfect nature the brain is able to hold its im¬ 
pressions and to recall them at will. The most healthful minds, 
whether in the ranks of civilization or of savage life, are endowed 
with the power of memory to a most wonderful extent. The 
humblest brain is oftentimes the strongest, and its faculty of 
memory the most acute. It is for this reason that great men and 
women rise from the lowest strata of humanity in much greater 
numbers than from the grades of cultured ease. 

Old age is a disease. 

One of its indications is the effacing of the mental storehouse 
of impressions. 

Paresis is shown by the loss of memory. Softening of the 
brain is preceded by inability to remember people and ideas. 
Insanity is marked by a blank mind in coherent matters. 

All grades of mental health are found in the world; and dis¬ 
ordered minds are generally associated with defective memories. 
There are very few persons who have the power of holding and 
recalling facts and details of great range; and, almost without 
exception, in proportion as they lack the power they are failures 
in life. The names that have outlived the rolling decades belong 
to persons who have been strong in this special faculty. 

It is the disposition of people to belittle the value of the 
memory. But what is there in living, either in this world or the 
next, if memory ceases? If you are not cognizant of your 
present existence, when the morrow comes you might as well be 
born a Smith or a Jones, or some other individual who is no part 
of yourself, for it is only in memory that you retain your iden¬ 
tity, as far as you have knowledge of the past and present. 

The mind of the healthful child is necessarily strong in its 
ability to hold impressions. Yet it forgets almost as readily as it 
takes hold of details. If the future of that child is to be im¬ 
portant, it will become so through the increase of the faculty of 
memory as the basis. Let it lack the power to retain ideas and 
it will become weak in mind. The most important step that a 

..i 

\ 


FAULTY MEMORY. 


227 


parent can take is to train the infant mind to the habits of re¬ 
tention and recalling facts. It is not an education; but is quite 
the opposite. Education leads forth and draws out the latent 
forces of thought; while memory stores away and holds for con¬ 
stant use many ideas that have grown out of impressions made 
upon the brain. 

No one can begin too early in the life of the child to teach it 
the art of never forgetting important matters. For this purpose 
it is not necessary to make use of some artificial system of build¬ 
ing up the faculty of memory; but to employ the natural pro¬ 
cesses that arise in the course of each day’s existence. 

The best of all plans, not only for the child, but for the adult, 
is to set up a certain number of actual occurrences each day as the 
important things to be held in mind. We have seen this plan 
work wonders in many cases; and it has no failure except where 
the individual is actually lazy. The principle on which it works 
is the most natural that could be employed. It recognizes the 
mind as a surface on which impressions may be written in shal¬ 
lowness or in depths; and this law holds true under all circum¬ 
stances. If you write on the sand in fine, thin lines, you will lose 
your impression ere the next wave has receded. If you dig into 
the rock with the force of the chisel, you will have the impres¬ 
sion forever in its full strength. It is exactly the same way with 
thoughts. 

Let the child go to its bed at night with no review of the trans¬ 
actions of the day, and the mind will be at a standstill. On the 
other hand, let it recall one great act or transaction of the day, 
and be told that it must not forget it, and the mind will write the 
impression deeply, and be able to recall it at will. On the next 
morning, let the child be asked what occurred on the day before 
that it most clearly remembers, and it will repeat the trans¬ 
action at once. On the next morning let it be asked what was the 
chief fact of the second day before, and that fact will still linger. 
Otherwise it would have been lost entirely. This reviewing of it 
causes the brain to take hold of it through the deeper fibers and 
thus to get a much more lasting impression. 

Then two facts can be made use of and carried over for two 
days. After this use three facts, then four, and so on until you 
have ten in all. The next step is to use unimportant facts instead 
of the important ones. 


228 SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 


This is the most satisfactory part of the training, as it teaches 
the mind to retain anything at will, not merely the things of 
great importance. 

One more of these preliminary steps is to be considered, and that 
is the wide diversion of ideas, so as to bring the brain into 
activity in all its uses. Let us now give examples of what is 
to be done. 

1. The thing that is most important in the history of the child’s 
life for the day is to be recalled. We will say that an uncle has 
called and made a brief visit, during which a gift of a box of 
candy was brought. The child will recall that its uncle brought 
it a box of candy. 

Let this be asked of the child for the next two days, as well as 
at the time of retiring that night. 

Then two facts of leading importance are to be added, as that 
there was a fire in the next house, if such be the case, and also that 
the child went driving with its parents. Then let these be re¬ 
peated for the next two days. Go on adding the important facts 
until there are ten in one day. 

Then take up the unimportant things, as the fact that the 
door was left open by some one, or that the chair was not close 
to the table in which some person sat; and begin with one of these, 
then take two, and go on increasing as before. This will make 
a series by themselves. 

The third series will he made by diverse interests, using any 
kind of fact, whether important or not. Such variety of matters 
will keep the mind balanced. One set may be seen as follows: 

Two and nineteen make twenty-one. 

Birds make their nests in the spring and depart in the fall. 

The sky is underneath the earth to China. 

Music pleases the ear. 

Flowers are beautiful when they are fresh. 

Seeds put in warm, moist ground will grow. 

A noun is the name of some thing, place, or person. 

Bad people are not happy. 

Iron sinks in water. 

Jewels are the flowers of the sunken earth. 

Pictures on the walls of a home make us think of other parts of 
the world* 

The ocean is a curved surface. 



FAULTY memory. 


229 

It is well to use one such fact and make it grow by adding one 
every three days, until ten can be carried. You may select thou¬ 
sands of ideas in like manner, and thus keep a train of thought 
before the mind of the child, proceeding only as fast as it is able 
to carry the things in its memory. 

This is not taxing. The child likes it. After a few weeks it 
will be doing this very thing itself. 

When we are asked at what age it is wise to begin, we say that 
a few very simple facts can be used when the infant is in its 
third year. We have seen it done when the child is only fifteen 
months old; but this was experimental only. We have known of 
three facts being carried from the age of fifteen months to the age 
of fifteen years; so that there was an abiding recollection of the 
actual occurrences; but it was accomplished only by beginning at the 
very day, and repeating every day for a long time, and finally once 
every three days, and then once a week, until the mind held on 
to the details without coaching. As a rule no person recalls "the 
events of the first three or four years of life; not even a great 
disaster. 

By this simple process the brain becomes strong in the most re¬ 
markable begree. This is not theory, as we have tried the plan with 
our own children, and their powers of mind and remarkable mem¬ 
ories are easily tested. But other families have followed our 
advice, which is as old as a generation, for these laws have been 
in private use for that length of time. 

What is advantageous to the child is equally so to the adult; 
the only difference being the use of larger ideas. But we know 
of thousands of minds that cannot retain even the simple ideas 
which we suggest for children. There are more than nine 
hundred persons in every thousand who are wholly incapable of 
carrying on this easy process; and the reason is that they are 
used to shallow thinking, and never to deep activities of the 
brain. There is plenty of hope for them, as they are subject to 
the same improvement as children, except that it will not start 
as quickly. 

It is to benefit them that we unfold the present plan of practice. 
In order to be understood, the system should be explained on its 
scientific side; and this we will do now. 

For the purpose of understanding this system of memory- 
culture, we must imagine that the brain is divided info three 


230 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 


thicknesses, as far as its main mass is concerned. Were this mass 
absolutely smooth it would be a covering of considerable bulk; 
but as it is indented it makes as much surface as possible, and this 
is done by convolutions and interstices that are very numerous. 
The economy of nature thus presents an immense amount of sur¬ 
face on which indentations are to be made. This surface may be 
supposed to be three-fold in its relation to memory: 

1. The film or shallow surface. 

2. The common impressions. 

3. The deep impressions. 

The surface of the brain is ever-changeable. New tissue is 
constantly taking the place of the old. Hence the impressions 
that reach only the surface are not lasting; they are wiped away 
by the rapid growth of new cells that take the place of the old ones. 
The depth of these surface impressions is so slight that they fail 
to establish shape. All deep impressions set up a certain shape to 
parts of the brain’s convolution that they affect, and, when new 
cells come, they take the place of the old ones and thus preserve 
the shape that has been established. 

This is the law of identity. 

An illustration of this is seen in the wrinkles on the face. A 
certain kind of disappointment will draw the features into a posi¬ 
tion that is in harmony with the feeling. If the pain is severe, the 
face will form wrinkles that will stand as evidence of the cause; 
but a light, transitory pain will send a wavering shadow over the 
face that will pass away into nothingness as soon as it is born. 
The expression that rests on the features of any person is the 
story told by millions of wrinkles too fine to be seen by the naked 
eye; and yet that expression is lost when it is magnified by a 
glass. Each impression that enters the brain forms part of the 
expression that rests upon the face. 

The skin of the face is being woven every minute of the day, and 
the thoughts of the mind are the threads that enter into the fabric. 

Superficial thoughts make a superficial face. A perfectly 
smooth face is expressionless. A woman of great beauty was 
very attractive to persons who were at least ten feet away; but, 
close to her, she had a coarse skin. With a desire to create a 
beautiful face at short range, she employed a Parisian enameler 
who took out every wrinkle and gave her a skin of velvety smooth¬ 
ness. The result was that her beauty was totally lost, because a 


FAULTY MEMORY. 


231 


blank, doll-like, dead-clay face was unattractive. When its ex¬ 
pression was lost, it ceased to possess the power to attract. 

What is true of the face is true of the brain, and the wonderful 
part of it is that the same influences or causes that affect the face 
are at the same time doing as much for the brain. 

For the purpose of ready illustration we must deal with the 
organ of the mind as a three-fold covering, now deep in its con¬ 
volutions and interstices, though perhaps not indented intricately 
as yet. The convolution and spaces are the plan of nature to 
allow of very great memory. 

To start with, let the fact be fixed that the surface impressions 
have no depth and are never abiding. No person has need of 
remembering all the things that are said and done during the day. 
In order to save crowding the memory with a mass of useless 
details that would in time pile up nothing but debris, nature has 
so arranged things that the unimportant things said are allowed to 
strike and die upon the surface of the brain tissue. 

This is to be known as the outer covering, or superficial mind. 
It is most exposed to the circulatory changes and to the mucus 
fluids that wash the brain; hence it is an ever-shifting surface, 
a mere film of transitory ideas and impressions. This is a fortu¬ 
nate arrangement of nature. 

It can at once be seen that memory is a faculty of the deeper 
tissue of the brain. It is in this deeper tissue that the permanent 
forces of a healthy mind reside. 

These illustrations are employed as an aid to understanding 
the methods by which health and sanity are secured in the 
brain. The technical statements would not be understood, nor 
would they afford the slightest aid if they were comprehended. The 
following principles remain the same in either case: 

1. An idea standing absolutely alone cannot be remembered. 

2. An idea that is never repeated in the mind cannot be re¬ 
membered. 

3. Mere repetitions do not deepen the mind’s grasp of an idea, 
nor give it greater power of memory. 

4. Exceptions to any of the foregoing principles are always evi¬ 
dence of disease, as they denote shocks to the brain. 

Getting below the surface of the brain is essential, and this is not 
easy unless the attention can be secured, held and employed for 
some associated purpose in life. 


232 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 


A brief examination of these laws will prove valuable. Under 
the first we learn that an idea that stands absolutely alone cannot 
be remembered. This shows that the purpose of memory is to 
weave a fabric, like, cloth of warp and woof. An exception to this 
rule would indicate that the mind had been shocked, as when 
some horrible act has come to the attention and fastened itself 
upon the mind. All single ideas reach the surface or shallow part 
of the brain and die; and it is an advantage to get rid of them. 
Some crime, or some exhibition of terrible shock to the brain, or 
some matter that has risen up like a ghost in the pathway of the 
thoughts, may seize hold on the memory and refuse to let go; and 
this would prove an exception to the law first stated. It is not 
memory but a fixed and injurious impression. 

Fear of coming poverty, or the apprehension of some doom will 
keep the thoughts from their proper channels and prevent the 
healthful operations of the mind. Some persons live all through 
the day in excessive activity so that they may forget the things 
that thrust themselves upon them without invitation; but this is 
not memory control; it is the lack of control instead. When the 
busy action of the day’s duties is over, then the ghosts of other 
things will step in and torment them. In all cases where sleep 
is difficult to secure at night, the sufferer lies awake and thinks 
over one thing after another, but is always coming back to the 
ideas that have seized hold and refuse to let go of the mind. 

“ If I could only stop thinking,” is the common remark. New 
lines of thought are cultivated, but the few prominent things that 
harass are always peeping around comers of the brain and looking 
in upon the attention like unwelcome apparitions. The case of 
the woman who met a horrible looking tramp, with bleeding face 
and an eye hanging out upon the cheek, and who could see noth¬ 
ing else for weeks and months, is an illustration of the force of 
a single idea that takes possession of the mind contrary to the 
first principle, but in accordance with the fourth. 

She could not forget. 

She had no control whatever of her memory; for the healthful 
mind is able to throw off an unwelcome thought at will. 

This shock to her brain kept her awake at night; and it was 
found necessary to keep the lights burning and some trusted 
companion in the room with her. For a long time there were 
fears that she would Ipse her reason. The sight had not only 


FAULTY MEMORY. 


233 


penetrated the surface of the brain but had gone into its inner 
depths, and there imbedded itself; but it also took complete 
possession of all her thoughts. Everything that was pleasing or 
diverting was brought to her attention, and events were arranged 
with a view to giving her new trains of thought, but the one idea 
could not be forgotten. It was at this junction that she was given 
the study of the principles stated, and she found wherein lay the 
trouble. 

Faulty memory, it will be seen, is the lack of power over the 
thoughts that insist on remaining; and is also lack of power over 
the ideas that should remain but that become evanescent and 
escape. 

The second law states that an idea that is never repeated in 
the mind cannot be remembered. We will examine this a little 
farther on. 

The third law says that mere repetitions do not strengthen the 
mind nor give it greater power of memory. This is seen in the 
common habit of trying to grasp ideas by parroting, or saying 
the words over and over again. A child that repeats by simply 
restating the idea will never have a living grasp of it. We have 
seen students, young and mature, who have tried to translate 
Latin and Greek, or other language, and who would look in the 
lexicon again and again for the translation of the same words; and 
it is not over-stating the facts when we say that most students 
look up the same words fully two hundred times before they tlx 
them in the memory. The reason is that the mere reptition of 
an idea is not helpful; the mere sight of tbe word and its English 
equivalent will not suffice; for that kind of studying has no root 
deeper than the surface of the brain. Any reader of these pages 
who has passed through such experiences will at once recognize 
what we mean. 

There is no memory in the surface of the brain; or what, for 
convenience, we call the outer layer of the brain. That is the 
function that is intended to be used for the commonplace trans¬ 
actions of the day, and then to go out of use forever as far as they 
are concerned. It is like a post office that receives and forwards 
the mail daily and retains none of it. Most of the letters are not 
valued as property or as records to be kept; but some of them have 
such value and are passed on to be retained in vaults, archives and 
places of permanent safety. The surface brain is just such a 


234 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 


medium as the post office, The few rare things that should be 
kept or treasured in the memory are to be sent, or ought to be 
sent, down deep into the third brain-layer; while the matters of 
general information that make the mind rich and the thoughts 
wise are intended for the middle layer of the brain. 

Hence it will be seen that the depth of the impression alone is 
the secret of memory; the shallow surface-impressions having no 
abiding power; the deeper impressions holding themselves ready 
for use and reference at all times during life; and the deepest of 
all the impressions making the guiding facts of every great life. 

All this is the result of culture, or rather of habit, for habit is 
culture good or bad. 

There is no line of training or education or whatever else you 
may choose to call it that has such value as this. Let it be made 
the first and always the chief course of training in the existence of 
every intelligent human being, child, youth, adult and aged. Even 
the old folks will hail as a blessing the faculty of memory that 
connects the choosable events of the long past with the present, 
and keeps in hand the associations of to-day in all their intricacies. 

By referring once more to the four principles, or laws, we find 
that the pith of the whole business is ascertained by the union of 
the first with the second. While they are stated negatively, their 
opposites are necessarily true. What is this duality of law ? 

An idea that stands absolutely alone cannot be remembered. 
An idea that is never repeated cannot be remembered. 

The dual law then is this: Association and repetition. 

From the beginning of the arts and sciences there have been 
innumerable inventors of memory systems. We have seen scores 
of those that are called the most effective; but we have never 
seen one that was not based on this dual law: association and 
repetition. 

You can invent an effective memory system, and perhaps sell 
it to the world for a fortune; but you cannot avoid the use of this 
dual law: association and repetition. 

If you produce some system of developing the memory, you 
will have success exactly in proportion as you make use of this 
dual law, and can secure its adoption with ease and effectiveness. 
It is unnatural to attempt to force any other plan on the mind, 
as no other is within the processes of the function. 

Try to apply this dual law. 


Faulty memory. 235 

We might end these lessons here were it easy for you to under¬ 
stand what is meant by the two parts of the law. But association 
is based upon the weaving process of the brain; and this is not 
at first clear to the student; while repetition is founded upon the 
act of going to or from the idea, and this is still more difficult to 
comprehend without explanation. Thus the dual law unfolds 
itself into a four-part law, as follows: 

1. a. ASSOCIATION. 

1 b. WEAVING. 

2 a. REPETITION. 

2 b. APPROACH or DEPARTURE. 

Under the law of association it is necessary to weave the fabric 
in which the idea is placed, if you wish to retain it permanently, 
or if you wish to make the brain-tissue strong. The reasons are 
very plain as may be seen: 

A single idea, free from association, impresses only the surface 
of the brain. « „ 

An unrepeated idea impresses only the surface of the brain. 

The surface of the brain is intended by nature for transitory 
and forgetable ideas; hence the use of it exclusively will produce 
a weak mind and allow of no development. The under or thicker 
tissue must be impressed. 

Repetition should not be parroting, nor should it be automatic. 

Let us see what these mean; for they are to-day the most 
faulty kinds of mental action. 

Parroting is the repetition of ideas without association; and 
the mind is conscious of the process. 

Automatic memory is the repetition of ideas from mere habit. 

Both faults come from the shallow surface of the brain. The 
first is a conscious effort to memorize by a mistaken method. The 
second performs itself, and is an attribute of brute and humanity. 

The brute species do not reason out the deeds they perform. 
They are led to their acts by a memory of some prior event, or 
by the instinct of the third brain. The child just born, or the 
young animal that has never had any experience in the world, will 
begin to suck and will take in its food at the outset with as much 
skill as if it had done it thousands of times. This is instinct and 
is controlled by the third brain, or medulla. But if an animal 
has been fed at a certain place, but once only, it may go there 
again; if fed twice there it will go there again; but, after being 


236 SPECIAL TkfiATM^Nf NUMBER NlN£. 


fed there a number of times, and finding its food by accident in 
another place, it will divide its attention between the two places 
until the second place has been established by constant repetition 
without omission. Let it be fed at place number one for fifty 
consecutive days, then at place number two for fifty consecutive 
days, then at place number three the same length of time, at num¬ 
bers four and five the same; and we have the fact that the animal 
has established its automatic habits for five times; the second brain 
taking up the work of directing the muscles to repeat their pre¬ 
vious experiences. Now, after the animal has found out that the 
feeding place is changed every fifty days, it will come to expect a 
change at about the fifty-first day in every instance. When no 
food appears anywhere, it will hunt about the fifth place for a 
while, then go back to the fourth and hunt about, then go back 
to the third, and so on until it has thoroughly examined them all. 
As the first was the beginning of the episodes, it will divide its 
attention between the first and the fifth places, and finally be on 
the lookout for the prospective sixth. 

Automatic memory is not genuine memory. It is far from it, 
yet it is the only memory of species below the human. Dogs, 
horses and other brutes are said to be able to count, as is seen in 
the shows; but that counting is always based upon a trick which 
deceives many in the audience. The animal is trained to the 
cheapest or lowest form of automatic repetition. A much higher 
form of the faculty is shown in the following, experiment which 
nearly all animals will take to very readily: 

Erect ten feeding booths in a field of liberal size, so that no 
two booths will be very near each other. In the booth that is 
at the east, place the usual rations of the animal at the eating time. 
Let the animal by wandering find it unassisted. Repeat this for 
any number of days less than ten; say for eight days in succession. 
On the first day the animal will hunt a long time for its food, but 
it will find it. On the second day it will probably hunt for a 
minute or two, but will soon go to the east booth which we will 
call number one. On the third and all remaining days it will go 
automatically to that same booth. When, on the ninth day it 
goes there and finds no food, it will be puzzled. A long time will 
elapse, perhaps, before it will go to booth number two. The third 
brain, which is instinct, tells it to hunt for food; but the second 
brain, which is automatic memory, tells it to go where it went be- 


FAULTY MEMORY. 


237 


fore and found food. After a while the animal finds booth number 
two by accident, while hunting. It is somewhat puzzled. On the 
tenth day, or the second day of the second series, it will go first 
to booth number one, but will soon hie away to booth number two. 
ISTo time will be spent in hunting. Here the automatic memory 
is passing out of the first episode into the establishing of the 
second. On the third day of the second series, the animal will go 
to the second booth, and so on to the end of that series. When 
eight days have been completed, the food is placed in booth num¬ 
ber three on the first day of the new series. The animal will go 
to booth number two; it will find no food; it will not be much per¬ 
plexed, for it knows the food is somewhere. It goes to booth 
number one, for the old automaton is just as much alive as ever. 
Finding no food there, nor in number two, it takes its course 
directly to number three. It is there fed for the full eight days 
of the third series. On the first day of the fourth series it finds 
no food in booth number three; it goes to two, then to one, then 
to four, and there it is fed for eight days. On the first day of 
the fifth series it goes to booth number four, then to number three, 
then to number five, omitting numbers one and two. It has 
caught the idea that the change is onward toward the west. It is 
beginning to catch the idea also that a change is to occur at the end 
of a series of days; and, before it gets through all the series, it will 
probably have learned to count eight. If not, it will soon do so 
by going back to the beginning after all ten series have ended. 

This is not real memory. It is not proof of reasoning power, 
as many suppose. It is automatic repetition, or the adoption of 
a habit. Some unthinking readers will ask how the animal can 
count as far as eight, if it cannot reason. The frequency of repe¬ 
tition is automatic. Time is one of the simplest forms of the 
automaton in the physicial brain; for any animal can be quickly 
taught to expect its food at a fixed time, just as a person can 
learn to wake up at the same minute every morning. The lions 
are fed at a fixed hour in the city gardens. Come and see them. 
A few minutes before that hour they are uneasy; they walk about 
restlessly; they lash their tails and roar; they have no clock or 
watch, but their stomachs have time-clocks. It is an automatic 
action of the brain. 

The fault with the human mind to-day is the prevalence of the 
automatic memory. It is not good for intelligent beings to allow 


238 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 

it to have so much sway as it now has. All faculties are meant 
for some use, but an inferior, animal faculty ought not to have a 
controlling use over all others. 

When a person starts upon a new kind of employment, the 
details must be remembered. The first brain, or mind, takes them 
in and, after a few days of use, passes them over to the automatic 
brain. In this way the pianist learns to play with all ten digits 
at once; and the organist at the church uses his ten digits, his 
two feet, his eyes and his ears, all in perfect mastery over the 
finger scale, the foot scale, of many stops, the book of music 
before him and the harmony of sounds that the great instrument 
emits. His mind is at work as a general director, but it cannot 
think out the myriad little deeds that his body performs. They 
are the result of automatic memory. . Some professions, but no¬ 
tably that of music, depend very largely upon the automatic mem¬ 
ory; hence an indulgence in them unfits a man or woman for the 
great duties of life in proportion as that indulgence is out of 
balance with the full round of other faculties. 


THE PARROTING FAULT. 

Scholars of every age in the public and private schools are 
taught to do their memorizing by the parroting method; or, rather, 
they are permitted to do it in that way. The answers to questions, 
the rules, the tables of arithmetic, the propositions in grammar 
and other studies are stuffed into the mind by imitative repeti¬ 
tion. How does a student learn what a noun is? He reads the 
answer in the book and repeats it until the automatic brain can 
adopt it. But how much real knowledge is secured in this way? 
Practically none. 

Suppose you wish to memorize a list of names, dates, events, 
etc., how have you been doing it? If very important, you will 
write them down. That is essential; and you will refer to the 
record if you can remember where you have put it. While writ¬ 
ing is necessary in certain instances, it gives the memory no exer¬ 
cise. The present method is to repeat the names, dates, events etc., 
until they have indented the brain-tissue. You see that repetition 
is required, but it is not the right kind of repetition, for it will not 
indent the brain. The latter is put to no tax. It has no hard 
work to do. We heard a young man practicing recently to memo-* 



faulty memory. 


239 


rize the dates of birth and death of certain great personages; and 
he was employing the old method, that which is heavy with age. 
He was proceeding as follows: “ Shakespeare was born April 23, 
1564, and died April 23 1616.—Born April 23, 1564, died April 
23, 1616.—Born April 23, 1564, died April 23, 1616.—Born April 
23, 1564, died April 23, 1616.”—And so on. Nearly all pnpils in 
the schools are using this old method, and their brains are dwarfed 
by it. 

We admit that if a fact could be repeated in such a way that the 
blow of the repetition would tend to indent the brain-tissue, the 
old method would be a good one; but experience shows conclu¬ 
sively that single processes of repetition not only fail to indent the 
brain, but that they leave it smoother than when begun and thus 
weaken it. The whole secret is to repeat by different processes; 
in which case a very little repetition suffices, time is saved, the 
facts are retained, the brain-tissue is strengthened and mind¬ 
drifting is made impossible. 

There is not to-day, there never was, and there never will be, 
any plan of memorizing without repetition. This being true, it 
is important to ascertain what methods are most effective. 

Let the 'parroting method be turned into that of repetition with 
association, and note the result. The mind will weave a fabric, and 
this cannot be done by using the shallow surface of the brain. 
Take, as an example, the Shakespearean dates, and seek to produce 
out of them a series of secondary ideas; the latter being the woof 
or weft of the texture. 

Primary idea'. Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564. 
Secondary idea : This is the same month and the same day as 
of his death. 

Primary idea : He died on April 23, 1616.— Secondary idea : 
This is the same month and same day as of his birth. 

This association of ideas will tend to fix the date, April 23; but 
how are we to fix the year in which he was born, and the year in 
which he died? 

Primary idea : He was born in 1564, and died in 1616.— 
Secondary idea : He lived fifty-two years; or, using the simile 
of weeks in a year, he lived one year of years. This is never 
forgotten even by an ordinary mind. Having this secondary 
fact as a basis, we need only one date by which to find the other. 
But how are we to get the needed date? 


240 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 

Primary idea : He was born in 1564, and died in 1616.— 
Secondary idea : The figure 4 prevails in these dates. This 
figure (4) ends the first date, 1564; its square (4 times 4) appears 
twice in the second date, 1616; its cube (4 times 4 times 4) appears 
in the last half of the first date, 1564; and the 4 is in the starting 
date 1564, and becomes the starting figure of the process. 

All these things pass through the mind with the speed of light¬ 
ning, and the repetition will occur as fast as one can read either 
aloud or silently. 

You will at once say that the dates of the birth and death of 
Shakespeare are exceptional. But you cannot find any date or 
idea that you wish to fix in mind that cannot be woven into a 
similar fabric. We could find fifty secondary ideas connected 
with the Shakespearean dates, and enlarge endlessly upon them, had 
we chosen to do so. As another example which we come upon by 
accident, we find that in the year 1865, on September 5, a fire in 
Constantinople destroyed 15,000 houses and checked the cholera 
which had been raging there in the form of a fearful epidemic. 
This is the primary idea. The idea itself can be fixed by weaving 
into it the fact that the fire did a good service by checking the 
epidemic; for fire is cleansing. 

But, supposing you wish to recall the year, the month and the 
day of the month, as well as the number of houses which were 
destroyed, how can you do so at one glance of the eye? No time 
is required in making repetition or in weaving the fabric of the 
warp and woof. The mind loves the process after a while, and 
will do the work with a rapidity that is amazing. 

The secondary ideas as to the dates are these: The figure 5 
prevails; it was in the year 1865; it was on the fifth day of Septem¬ 
ber; and there were 15,000 houses burned. But how will the 
mind retain the month of September? It is the only month of 
the year that has nine letters in it; it is the ninth month; the 
word Constantinople has five more letters in it than the word 
September; and these little trifles, small as they are, serve to 
give the mind such a grasp on the whole idea that one reading, ac¬ 
companied by one quick action of the thoughts, will so effectively 
place the ideas in the brain that they will not leave for years; and 
yet they will never intrude themselves unless called forth. 

This is the perfect health of the perfect mind. It should be ac¬ 
quired by all persons, 


FAULTY MEMORY. 


241 


As we arise from this writing a man who is the principal of a 
high school says to us: “ How much is a cubit ?” We ask him 
what he thinks is the length of it, and he says: “ I can never 

fix arbitrary things in my mind. I do not know whether it is 
an inch or a mile, a rod, a fathom or a foot. There is nothing 
in the word to make it intelligible to me and I am always com¬ 
pelled to look it up.” 

We gave him the law of association and the process of weaving 
the fabric as follows: 

Primary idea : What is the length of a cubit ?—Secondary idea: 
The word cubit comes from the Latin word cubitum, meaning 
the forearm. The cubits of ancient times averaged about twenty 
inches; and, as the heights of men varied, the length of the cubit 
was uncertain. No one can say to-day just the exact length; but 
it is well to know whether it is a league, a fathom, an inch, or 
what else; and the idea is exact enough when we keep in mind that 
it is the length of the masculine forearm of a mature man, or 
about twenty inches. It is also six palms, or hand-breadths; and 
there was in vogue at one time the long cubit, which was seven 
hand-breaths. The Bible speaks of the “ cubit and hand-breadth ” 
as one measurement. This came from the habit of measuring the 
length of a wall or object by placing the left arm on the wall so 
that the cubitum would be in a horizontal position, then placing 
the palm of the right hand at the left elbow as the beginning place 
of making the next measurement, and holding the palm there 
until the left cubitum was moved past it. This would, of course, 
necessitate including the hand-width in the measurement. 

After all this it would never be possible for any person to get 
mixed up on the approximate length and meaning of the cubit. 

The names of measures and measurements in use in English are 
intelligible in as far as they are employed; but to a person who 
has not seen them used, they are cloudy ideas, and would have to 
be fixed by weaving them into fabrics, just as we have done with 
the word cubit. 

An impression may be shallow, ordinary or DEEP. A shallow 
impression never makes memory. The brain-tissue is affected, 
but not indented. We can recall it at the time, or shortly after, 
but not a long while after its action upon the mind; as when we 
hear a remark and repeat it a few seconds later. The following 
incident illustrates what is a common experience with everybody. 


242 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 


A man was seated upon a lawn where there were several groups 
of visitors. He was talking in tones loud enough to be heard by 
every person present, although his remarks were directed to the 
group of which he was the center. His voice was heavy and could 
be easily heard. His remarks were casual and of no special inter¬ 
est. We selected one that would serve our purpose; it was some¬ 
thing like this: “ It will not rain to-day, but the paper says it 

will probably rain to-morrow.” This was heard by everybody upon 
the lawn, but it attracted the attention of no one in particular. 
We asked the man to say nothing more for a few minutes, as we 
were experimenting. He remained silent. In thirty seconds we 
asked three persons, separated from hearing our questions, what 
that man had said about rain. One replied, “ He said we would 
not get any rain to-day, but might look for it to-morrow.” The 
next replied, “ He spoke of rain to-morrow, but thought it would 
be fair the rest of the day.” The third replied, “ He said it was 
going to rain in a day or two.”—It will be noticed that time was 
passing as we were proceeding with our inquiry. The last reply 
showed the passing away of the shallow brain impression. We 
allowed a half minute to pass, and asked the same question of three 
other persons. One replied, “ He spoke of rain, but I did not pay 
much attention.” Another replied, “ He said it was going to rain. 
I do not know when.” Another replied, "I heard him speak of rain. 
That is all I recall.”—After the lapse of two more minutes we 
asked three more persons the same question. One replied, “ I 
heard him mention the weather, but do not remember what he 
said.” Another replied, “ I have a faint recollection of his saying 
something about the predictions for to-morrow. I think he said 
it would be hot.” The ninth person replied, “ He said that the 
paper predicted fair weather for this afternoon, but that there was 
a probability of rain to-morrow. I have an important outing en¬ 
gagement for to-morrow, and I was anxious to know what the 
weather would be, so I absorbed what he said.” This ninth 
person was the farthest from the man who had made the remark; 
but a special interest in the subject-matter caused the idea to take 
a deeper hold on the brain surface, and from that film it was trans¬ 
ferred to the inner brain to be stored away for a few days. 

Thousands of remarks are made every day that are totally lost 
after a minute, but that could nevertheless be recalled within the 
minute if -the effort were to be made, This is a wonderful fact, yef 


FAULTY MEMORY. 


243 


it is so common that it requires hard mental work to overcome the 
injury it does $ for most persons hear without absorbing. A friend 
talks to you, and you hear, for your are not deaf; yet not a word 
gets into the memory part of your brain.—“You are not listening,” 
the friend says.—“Yes, I am.”—“What did I just say?”—“You 
said.” “Yes, that is correct. But what was I say¬ 
ing before that ? ” “ For the life of me I do not know.” This 

experience is common to all persons. There is very little reason 
for retaining much of what we hear. But in church and at lec¬ 
tures, as well as in the school-room, this becomes a fault. The 
minister preaches for nearly an hour, and the congregation know 
all that he says; they listen to it with care; yet when they get 
home they cannot recall the ideas or points unless some prominence 
was given to them in the sermon. 

The habit of letting so many ideas die upon the surface of the 
brain soon takes away the power of a strong memory. This fact 
was recently illustrated by an experiment. We told the following 
incident to twelve gentlemen, all of whom were of good mental 
caliber. They asked for some anecdote that would illustrate a 
certain point, and we gave them this: “ An Irishman was being 

cross-examined in court, but he could not understand what was 
meant by a miracle. The lawyer asked him what he would call it 
if a man were to fall from a ten-story window upon a brick side¬ 
walk and not be hurt. ‘ I would call it an accident/ said the 
witness. ‘But/ continued the lawyer, ‘suppose he fell again the 
second day and was not hurt ?’ ‘ I would call it a coincidence.’ 
‘ Then/ said the lawyer, warming up with the prospect of victory, 
‘ suppose that man fell the third day, what would you call it ? ’ 
‘ I would call it a habit.’ ” This incident was told but once. Every 
one of the twelve gentlemen who heard it was able to repeat it 
correctly within five minutes after hearing it; not one could get 
the ideas in their order the next day. 

This shows how evanescent is the surface-brain. The same ex¬ 
perience is had with dreams. All these sleep-visitations work 
upon the brain-surface; never any deeper. A dream occurs when 
the sleeper is on the way to waking up; in fact a person is nine- 
tenths awake during most dreams. As soon as wakefulness comes, 
the dream is fresh and vivid; but ten minutes later it is beginning 
to vanish. If it was a very impressive sensation, the dreamer may 
transfer it to the deep brain after waking up and thinking it over, 



244 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 


If it is not so transferred, it will vanish and leave only a faint trail 
along the line of memory. You can prove this fact by studying 
your own experiences. 

In order to acquire a powerful memory the first thing to do is 
to avoid two things, for they are 

TWO GEEAT FAULTS. 

1. Avoid automatic memory. 

2. Avoid surface memory. 

These defects have been fully explained in the preceding pages; 
and the only thing now to do is to acquire the ability to recognize 
them. If the mind can train itself to know either of these faults 
when they occur, it will soon drive them out of your life. Auto¬ 
matic memory leads to mind wandering and to the doing of things 
without thinking. Out of this habit comes the tendency to do 
and to say things from which the mind is completely separated. 
The automatic brain may work when the mind sleeps, and the body 
may walk about as in somnambulism. Yet, on the other hand, 
automatic memory is useful as an attendant to the active mind. 
Surface memory has some value, for it enables us to discard things 
that we do not care to invite into our living thoughts; but the 
act of discarding should be voluntary and of the will, not mere 
drifting of the mind. 

Having shown the two great faults that stand in the way of mem¬ 
ory development, let us look at the methods whereby the latter may 
be acquired. In the beginning it ought to be understood that the 
child’s brain at birth is practically smooth. It is a life that is 
controlled solely by its vegetable functions. If it never received 
any ideas, its brain would remain smooth. Memory would be 
absent. For a year each sound it hears and each experience that 
comes to it makes an indentation on its brain, and the latter 
begins to grow. So evanescent are its impressions that most of 
them are wiped out soon after they are made. At three months 
the child will know its mother, for the special care of that parent 
toward the babe has indented its brain. Yet the indentation is 
soon wiped out. Most children who become orphaned of mother 
at any age under four or five fail in later years to remember 
the existence of that parent; and there are intelligent children 
who have been constantly with their mothers until the eighth, 


AtJtTY MEMORY. 


Ui 

who have then become motherless, and who at fourteen or fifteen 
have no memory of them. This shows how evanescent is the 
memory of the child. 

Yet some of the impressions of childhood become life-lasting, 
for they sink deeply into the brain to start with, and are vividly 
recalled from time to time and thus remain. 

This is excellent practice. A youth of twelve or more should 
be made to recall as much of his preceding life as possible; we 
have found children who could at that age go back to their second 
year. Then the leading facts of such era should be rehearsed every 
year. This is called bridging the memory. It can be begun in 
the second year by repeating one or two important experiences; 
these can be referred to in each subsequent year until the episodes 
of the second year are recalled twenty years later. But some of the 
facts of every year should be added; this being best done month 
by month. It gives great vitality to the brain-tissue and stimu¬ 
lates the mind. 

The intelligence of any man or woman is the sum total of the 
indentations that have been made upon the brain. Surface im¬ 
pressions maks no indentations. This is seen in the two common 
instances that affect most households. The wife gives a letter to 
her husband to be mailed. He puts it in his pocket, agreeing to 
mail it. The idea has not gone beyond the surface. He brings 
the letter back. “ Did you mail it? ” is the inquiry of the wife at 
night. “ Yes, of course I mailed it,” he replies, even forgetting 
whether he did or not. “ How do you know that you mailed it? ” 
“ I never forget anything.” “ But here is the letter.” She weeps. 
He goes off to another room to be alone. 

The second instance so common to domestic life is the effort of 
the wife to have her husband remember something that he is to 
get at the store. She ties a piece of red string on his finger so 
that he will be sure to recall what is wanted. When he gets down 
town he does not hesitate to go boldly into the store. At the 
counter he stands face to face with the clerk; he sees the red cord 
on his finger, and it pains him by reason of the enthusiasm with 
which his wife tightened it so that he could not possibly forget 
what she wanted; but here at last he realizes that the cord is of 
no value whatever as a reminder of the thing that is wanted. It 
merely tells him to get something. He knows that, as no one 
else would tie a red cord upon a finger of his, it must have been 


246 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NltfE. 

the act of his wife; but all else is a vague day-dream. His mem¬ 
ory has utterly failed him. 

He excuses himself by the belief that he has so many other 
things on his mind that he cannot possibly recall what his wife 
asked him to get. But the fact is the other way. He has very 
little that is deep in his mind. The man who is compelled to 
tie a string upon his finger or put a rock in his hat to remind him 
of an errand that he is to perform, is at the lowest rung in the 
ladder of memory. The busiest men are able to carry in their 
minds the requests made by their wives. A lawyer who had 
thousands of weighty facts weighing upon his thoughts was asked 
by his wife, as he left home in the morning, to buy fifteen different 
articles at half a dozen stores. He did not write down one of them, 
nor did he forget one of them. He had memory enough to carry 
them all, and a few thousand other matters besides. 

It seems that the mind has no limit. 

This kind of memory is to be called “ carrier-memory,” for it 
merely carries ideas. It gives back just what it receives. Carrier- 
memory cannot exist in the surface brain. It cannot be auto¬ 
matic. Its development will soon render unnecessary the string 
on the finger and other reminders. It is the first great faculty of 
memory, beginning first in childhood and growing with the ad¬ 
vancing years. It develops and hardens the brain-tissue. It is 
a slave to the mind, not an influence that will deepen and broaden 
the intellect. Yet it is by far the most useful of all the kinds of 
memory. 

Every person should add daily at least one item to the load car ¬ 
ried by this faculty of the mind. The habit of adding to its 
duties is the surest of all methods to prevent the weakening or 
breaking down of the mental powers, as well in mature life as in 
youth, and especially in old age when all persons should guard 
against paresis. 

There is no limit to the ability of the carrier-memory. You 
could, if you had the time and opportunity, add ten thousand items 
to its stock every day, and keep on doing this for a hundred years 
without over-loading it. Yet any item that is lodged in the sur¬ 
face brain is useless. Depth of indentation is the secret. A sur¬ 
face impression vanishes and there is nothing to give back. A 
deep indentation remains until the tissue softens or breaks up, 
and should continue for a lifetime. 


FAULTY MEMORY. 247 

The first step in the practice of developing the carrier-memory 
is to form the habit of recalling the chief incidents of each day. 
The earliest efforts should be made at night after retiring. Let 
the incidents be recalled by groups as follows: 

1. Those that have occurred since supper. 

2. Those that occurred since dinner and before supper. 

3. Those that occurred since breakfast and before dinner. 

4. Those that occurred before breakfast. 

The plea may be made that this kind of thinking will lead to 
wakefulness. But the fact is, it will cause sleep after a few nights 
of trial, and will then have to be undertaken before retiring. In 
a few weeks, after actual progress has begun, the process will be 
very rapid; and a large number of events will be recalled in a 
minute. This will be helpful to the brain. It can think many 
things in a second. In a dream that occupies less than a half- 
minute, the sleeper can pass through days of experience. This 
fact may become troublesome in case the mind lives on after the 
death of the body, for remorse with its torments might bring what 
may seem to be endless pain to the person whose thoughts will not 
die with the flesh. In real memory time is not a factor. 

SUCCESSFUL MEMORY SYSTEMS. 

At this stage of the study we will present a series of the most 
successful systems of memorizing that have ever been used; some 
will serve one class of persons, and some another; we have put 
them all into use and find the mind all the stronger for doing so. 
A glance at each system will show that every one depends on the 
dual law of association and repetition. 

First Method .—“ Numbering.” 

The habit of giving numbers to ideas is one of the best of the 
simpler methods of strengthening the memory. If you are 
charged with a list of duties for the day, get them all in your mind, 
and give each one a number in the order in which the duties should 
be attended to. It is not difficult or irksome to do this, except 
for the first few days. All first steps in any right direction are 
met by the resistance of the mind’s inertia; but the habit of over¬ 
coming this enemy will make him scarce as time flies on. 

By using the numbering practice you will know what is ahead of 
you for the day, what you have accomplished as the day progresses, 
and what yet demand attention. 


248 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 


This same method may be employed for keeping informed on any 
series of events, or doing errands, or attending to matters, even 
when only one is to be looked after. The fewer the number in 
the list the more concentrated will the attention be when given to 
it. We have found from reports from others that it is possible to 
carry an unlimited number of ideas in this way, after a few weeks 
of practice. When the active memory is once well started, it will 
grow so rapidly as to cause wonderment. 

Second Method .—“ Position/’ 

This is a common form of habit by which memorizing has been 
done. 

We would suggest it as the beginning of all practice for those 
who find it almost impossible to commit selection to memory. 
Every intelligent man and woman wishes to have in mind some 
of the gems of literature, both in prose and poetry. The more 
of such value that you store away in your brain, the more power 
that brain will have; and the greatest men and women have been 
able to acquire vast funds of the best literature, spanning the 
wealth of the centuries. 

Position is most favorably inclined to help your mind when it 
is attended by large print, so that the ideas may have more scope 
of placement. Suppose you wish to memorize a poem of three 
pages, and that it has eighteen verses, or six to each page. You 
should make yourself familiar with the first line at the top and 
the last at the bottom of each page. This will give you six lines to 
begin with. See these with reference to their position on the 
pages; then see the line that opens each of the middle verses on 
the pages; then see the whole verses to which such lines belong. 
These should be placed in the mind and seen rather than recited. 

The next part of the practice is to find all the short sentences, 
and note where they are to be found on each page. Then find all 
the longest sentences; first the sentence that is the longest of all 
and then that which is next in length, and so on, until you know 
the place of each of the sentences. Every part of this practice 
must be done mentally. 

We had a class of twenty ladies, all of whom complained of their 
inability to memorize selections. We met at two o’clock in the 
afternoon, and called up a prose piece that was new to them all. 
It was written on six pages, in type-writer and carbons, so that 


faulty memory. 


249 

there was the usual amount of matter to each page. We called 
upon the class as a whole to reply to the following questions: 

What is the first and last line of the entire selection? 

What is the first and last line on each page? 

What is the shortest and the longest sentence in the selection? 

What is the most pleasing statement in the whole selection? 

What is the least pleasing statement in the selection? 

What sentences begin with the early letters of the alphabet, such 
as A, B, C, D and E? 

What are the five shortest sentences of the selection? 

What the five longest? 

After these had been answered and the sentences read aloud by 
the class in unison, referring always to the pages before them, we 
asked the ladies to state, each in turn, any sentence that had been 
read, or get it is nearly correct as possible; and, to their surprise, 
there were many that were correctly repeated. The process of 
hunting through the matter for replies to the inquiries had fur¬ 
nished them with a knowledge of the position of much of the 
selection, and this they saw clearly in the eye of the mind. Most 
of the pupils grasped the full piece that afternoon in three hours; 
and they were all novices. We have known others to cover the 
same ground perfectly in less than an hour; but they were adepts 
in memorizing. 

Third Method .—“ First Words.” 

This is something like the plan just described. It consists in 
selecting the first word of each paragraph and fixing it in the 
mind; then the first word of each sentence; then the first two words 
of each sentence; then the first three; then the first four; and 
adding one until the whole selection is memorized. This is the 
shortest route to a quick grasp of any piece. Actors have made use 
of the plan with the highest degree of success. All beginnings 
are slow, but after they have been mastered, as they can be by any 
person of real ambition, the rest of the progress is exceedingly 
rapid. 

Fourth Method .—“ Important Words.” 

This requires you to mark in each sentence the words that carry 
the leading thoughts or ideas, and so continue all through the 
piece. Then take those words and try to ascertain if your judg¬ 
ment is good as to the importance of the words. By doing this 


250 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 

your mind will become filled with the pith and essence of the 
thoughts until they are in fact a part of yourself. This is one 
of the most wholesome and beneficial of all kinds of mental train¬ 
ing, and should find a place in every school. 

Fifth Method .—“ Substitution.” 

This is the plan of reading the selection aloud and quickly 
substituting a new word in place of one that is there; and so con¬ 
tinue until you can, at will, make the sentences all over as far as 
their leading ideas are concerned. This we have tried for twenty 
years in our classes, and find that the practice leads to quick 
thinking, fluency of speech and to powerful memories. It ought 
to be adopted in every school, as the benefit to the brain is very 
great. Memorizing sessions ought to be held once a day in every 
school They could follow the lectures or lessons on other sub¬ 
jects, and the material to be used could be the substance of such 
preceding lessons. The mind of each pupil would grasp more, 
learn more, and be much stronger in every respect. 

Sixth Method .—“Details of Groups.” 

The powers of memory, which are possessed by certain Orientals, 
are so vast in their scope and quickness of grasp as to almost 
pass belief. One of the lines of practice is that of grouping a 
mass of details and then trying to pick out the single ideas with one 
quick glance of the eye, adding more at each time. The same can 
be attained by passing a store window and looking into the mass of 
details which the many articles there will present. Name one of 
them. Then pass again and name two articles; then pass again 
and name three; and so keep on, adding only one at a time until 
you reach your limit for the day. It is well authenticated that 
a person has trained the mind to see and to recall as many. as 500 
articles and details from one quick glance. This shows the power 
of the mind under training. Nor is it a gift that is confined to a 
few. Any class of sane mind can do as much. We have in other 
works referred to the use that is made of this faculty by reading 
the contents of a whole page of a book or a letter by the single 
glance of the eye. 

Seventh Method .—“ Portative Memory.” 

No person, young or old, and especially no old person, should 
fail to add each day at least one blank or arbitrary idea. This 


faulty memory. 


251 


includes dates, names of people, names of things, and other ma¬ 
terial that is not included in composite language. The reason for 
this rule is this: the first operation of the mind of the child is 
that of portative memory, or recalling things seen, heard, etc., 
that are held merely for plain usefulness; and as long as this 
faculty is kept active the rest of the brain will be very slow to 
take on the conditions of old age or senile weakness. Let porta¬ 
tive memory cease to be used, and the blank state will begin to 
creep slowly over the mind, and there will be nothing left to live 
for. All we are and all we love are connected with ourselves by 
the channels of clear consciousness. 

Disuse attracts weakness. 

Learn the names of more flowers, more trees, more persons, more 
of the things of life, and more of the qualities that enrich the 
soul. Let your vocabulary grow each day, and the final break¬ 
down will be delayed. When an old person finds the memory 
fading, courage is lost, and action grows feeble. You are no older 
than you think you are; and your estimate of yourself is made 
up largely of your remaining mental powers. 

Eighth Method.—“ Mental Tasks.” 

In our own boyhood, and in the youth of thousands of others, the 
use of mental arithmetic proved the very best of all kinds of 
practice for giving strength to the brain-tissue. It should be 
made a very common adjunct to all early steps in education. The 
mind is led to see figures and to watch their change in value or in 
bringing results. The more intricate the problems are, the better 
it will be for the brain. It is tiresome to weak minds, but never 
hurtful. It is less likely to cause headaches than the parroting 
methods now in vogue everywhere. We are positive that the 
habit -of making the mind do its work in figures without the aid 
of paper and pencil or of the eye will give it greater accuracy 
and much more power. So vitalizing is this practice in setting up 
strong habits of thinking, and in giving healthful brain-tissue, 
that nothing can take its place in curing the habits of mental 
wandering that are well nigh universal. It is just this strength 
of brain-tissue that the man or woman needs who is on the road 
to insanity. 

Its value can be seen from the fact that it is enjoyed by the 
clear-headed people, and is detested by those who waste their time 


252 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 

and smooth their brains by trashy reading, such as indulgence in 
novels, frothy newspapers and sensational gossip. 

Ninth Method.— ‘ Sectioning.” 

A man who had proved his wonderful memory by making 
it win fame and fortune for him in a public career, stated to 
his secretary that he owed his success in life to his ability to 
remember whatever he chose to admit to his brain; and that his 
memory was due to the habit, formed in his early manhood, of 
imagining his brain to be divided into one hundred sections 
wherein he stored such matters as he wished to carry in his thoughts 
for use. Some of these sections he sub-divided into many others. 
He said “ In my library are many shelves; each shelf holds books 
that are placed there in obedience to a plan that is clearly visible 
to my mind whether I am in the room or not. I can send a 
messenger to a certain shelf on a certain side of the library, and 
tell him to take down a book from any part of the shelf, and I 
will get exactly the volume that I wish. In my office there are 
many divisions and sub-divisions of space. These appear in desks, 
cabinets and closets. Nothing is arranged by accident, nor are 
things put away indiscriminately. There is something for every 
place. Each pigeon-hole is devoted to a certain use. I know 
what each section is, where it is, and what is in it. When you 
realize that there are more than a thousand sections in that room 
alone, and that many of them contain a hundred or more papers 
each, you can see what I am able to carry in my mind. Yet 
if you will test my memory, I will prove this power of the brain 
to be a fact, and I will show any person how to do as much for 
himself.” When asked if it was not a burden to his brain to carry 
so many details in it, he said that it was a relief, for everything 
was at hand when needed, and nothing intruded upon his attention 
unless he called it forth. He enjoyed his ability to summon any 
fact at will, and to find it present in the perfection of accuracy. 
He wasted no time in hunting for something he had mislaid. 

Tenth Method .—“ Substance.” 

This is the practice of quickly repeating in your own mind the 
value of any statement that you hear or read. It differs but 
slightly from retracing. The latter reproduces all ideas, while a 
statement of the substance gives only those thoughts that are 
helpful and important. 


faulty memory. 


253 


The best line of practice under this method is to read the 
second page of this treatise, then lay the work aside and try to 
restate the leading ideas on that page. The voice should be used, 
as its efforts to shape the sentences will make the mind work with 
greater speed and accuracy. 

After this is done, review the same page and see if you can add 
one more idea. Continue in this way until all the facts are clear in 
your head. Then take the third page; then the fourth; and with 
each one proceed in the same way. 

You will notice that this method differs from all the others in 
that it deals with the ideas and allows the language to be yours. It 
trains the mind to act in an independent way, while gathering up 
its freight of value and helpfulness. Pass through the entire book 
under this plan, and you will find that you have added many ideas 
to the present study that would have entirely escaped you. 

Greatness in this world is largely due to the habits of the mind 
by which they grasp a multitude of ideas. This was practiced by 
such men as Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate and others who came 
into the very highest ranks of prominence and success in their pro¬ 
fessions and in all departments of life; for they had prodigious 
memories. We do not dare to tell you that Choate could translate 
Greek and remember it as fast as he could translate it; for you 
might doubt us; but you have his biography at hand. We do 
not dare to tell you that Webster committed to memory all of the 
Old and Yew Testaments; all of Shakespeare’s works; and all of 
Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained; for you might 
question our statement; but we have been told this fact by persons 
who were his associates and who knew it. We refer you to some 
statements in this line made by his biographers. These men 
practiced retracing of whole pages, standing in their offices and 
reading the page of new matter, then speaking its ideas aloud 
until they were able to reproduce all the ideas there stated. 
Webster also made a practice during his earlier years and to some 
extent in later life of attending Church Sunday mornings, then 
repreaching the sermon in a conversational way to his family and 
friends in the afternoons of the same days; and it said that he 
never omitted an idea that the preacher had stated. Some of 
the thoughts he clothed in better form and gave new life to, and 
that is why his neighbors were glad to be present at his Sunday 
afternoon talks. 


254 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE- 


Eleventh Method. —“Action.” 

Action is pictured in the mind as moving or still. The brain is 
a photographic machine that takes pictures, but no motion is 
actually memorized or even pictured. The effect of motion may 
be seen, or any one or more of its details, but the actual movement 
itself is never photographed on the brain, any more than the vita- 
scope or the so-called “ moving pictures ” are protographs of 
motion. They are separate pictures that follow each other so 
rapidly that things seem to move. 

The practice of performing the action of a thought is in vogue 
among all great actors and actresses. They have the advantage 
over others for the reason that nothing is now considered adapted 
to the stage that does not admit of great opportunities for action. 
Talky plays are dead, and managers will not accept them. Even 
the speeches of Shakespeare are cut down or removed, except in 
a very few rare instances. 

The actor will not undertake to learn the words. He reads them 
and then begins to act their ideas. He paces his little room and 
imagines it a stage, and there performs the part over and over 
again until he becomes the character. Long before he needs them 
he has memorized all the words without trying to do so. The 
action is inspired by the language, and that finds its way into his 
brain by being performed in its lifelike essence. 

Anything that is capable of human action is dramatic; and all 
pupils who wish to master the words of that class of literature 
should depend on learning the action and let the words come to 
the mind, as they are sure to do so in a very short time; much 
sooner than they would if actually taken in hand by the usual 
methods. Then the habit of quick memorizing is cultivated in 
this way. 

Such habit is very important to the actor, for he must speak 
many lines in his work. Necessity compels him to memorize read¬ 
ily. The part of Hamlet in the play of that name could not be 
committed to memory by a person not experienced in the practice 
in less than six months, so that all cues and speeches would be 
perfectly fixed in the mind and be ready on the tongue. An 
actor of one season’s experience would perfectly memorize it in 
four months; another actor of two seasons’ experience would 
commit it in two months; still another actor, say one of three 
years’ experience, would master it in one month as far as the mem- 


FAULTY MEMORY. 255 

ory part is concerned; while one of four years’ experience would 
master it in two weeks; and there are some who would commit 
all the lines of Hamlet’s part in three days. It is a matter of habit 
of the right kind. 

Twelfth Method .—“ Pictures.” 

This plan differs from the one just given in that it is not sup¬ 
posed to include literature that admits of human action. 

A picture is a transaction moving or still that lives in the 
tissue of the brain. It is moving when it contains two or more 
details of the transaction. It is still when it contains only one 
such detail. As a matter of scientific fact the brain cannot 
receive motion, but takes in the parts of motion. In the sentence 
“ He struck him to the ground,” the mind holds the fact in one 
of two ways; either as a series of words, or as an idea embodying 
a transaction. In the sentence, “ Spelling is a useful art,” there 
is no ready transaction for the mind to grasp, for the details of 
a picture are lacking. 

This power is quickly cultivated and increases rapidly with 
each minute’s use. Take at random any line from literature, and 
you will find few indeed that cannot be made to yield a complex 
and effective picture. Here are some: 

“ Caesar paused upon the brink of the Rubicon.” It is not 
necessary, for the present purpose, to know what kind of a man 
Caesar was, or what kind of a river the Rubicon was; for the mind 
will see a man pausing, and will see him at the brink of a stream. 
It is not important to know how he was dressed, his color of 
skin, nor the shape of his features; the chief elements of the 
picture are the attitude of arms, legs, body and head, and the ap¬ 
parent purpose of the pause. The Rubicon may have low banks, 
flat banks, or high banks; it may have rocks at the brink, or grass 
or sand. The sky there may be clear or overcast. No person of 
fertile brain can fail to make a complex picture, and yet know 
nothing of the real Csesar or the real Rubicon. 

“When I look from my window at night.” 

“We sprang from the skiff, half fainting.” 

“ In the shade of the apple tree.” 

“At Saratoga’s deathless charge.” 

“ Black as the tempest’s midnight track.” 

“A large cage, containing two fiery-eyed and famished tigers.” 


256 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER NINE. 

“ The passengers ran here and there trying to find places 
safety which the flames had not reached.” 

“ I was weak and spent on the dusty read—a carriage stopped; 
but little she dreamed, as on she went, who kissed the coin that 
her fingers dropped.” 

The picture process is the art of seeing the transactions as 
clearly in the mind as if they were occurring in fact before the 
eyes. It is an art that grows with one kind of using, and that is 
the fixing of the order in which the details occur. This is ac¬ 
quired speedily if done by the cumulative plan; that is, commence 
with one detail, and add one at a time. It approaches, in this 
particular, the plan of retracing that is so valuable. 

Strength comes from any cumulative method; and weakness is 
the result of trying to reach the top of the ladder by one step. 

In bringing this treatise to a close we recommend that each 
reader adopt all of the methods stated, and make them a part of the 
daily life that is being enacted. By so doing you will plow out of 
your thoughts at will all the things that you wish to forget. 

The human brain pauses in stupendous wonderment at the pros¬ 
pect thus placed before it. We live in memory, and memory 
is the record of events that have come and gone. It is not 
true that we feel the experience of things as they are being 
enacted; but it is true that each little phase of the progress of a 
transaction must be enacted and completed before the human mind 
conceives it or is able to understand it. This therefore is memory, 
though of very brief duration. Nothing lives in the mind unless it 
is some fractional part of a second old. It is like the writing of an 
account or history; the letters are being made, but are not letters 
until they are made. 

Memory is the echo of the thing and not the thing itself. But 
the echo is fraught with the possibilities of good or bad, of sweet¬ 
est pleasure or pricking torment ; and that man or woman is 
fortunate indeed who has learned the golden secret of retaining 
what of the present and past is desirable and locking out all else. 

The power to select what thoughts are desirable is capable of be¬ 
ing developed by practice and habits. The use of such a power 
would save the mind a thousand burdens that now cause worry and 
unhappiness. To be able to forget is as important as to be able to 
remember. In a later degree book, PRIVATE RALSTON, this 
line of development is fully presented. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER lO 



elppfcigi^etism 


We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 

This Treatment is private. It is rented to the Inside Member 
to whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The member has no right to loan this mono¬ 
graph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or to come 
into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the same. 
This rule does not forbid the use of the Treatment by the member in 
behalf of any child or aged person who is actually in the member’s 
household; but all others must become Inside Members of the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help of this Treat¬ 
ment. To become such members will not cost anything, as may be 
seen by consulting the final pages of the book of Inside Member¬ 
ship, if the steps are taken as there directed. 

17 


(257) 





258 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 


THE GEEAT SELF-MAGNETISM SYSTEM. 

There are three kinds of affirmative magnetism; and these are 
the following: 

1. Personal Magnetism, or the possession and development of 
the power; and Universal Magnetism, or the uses that can be 
made of that power. These two immense lines of training are 
contained in books that are issued by Ealston University, the first 
book costing five dollars, and the second costing fifty dollars. 
The high price of the last-named work is due to the advantages 
that are derived from its teachings that enable one person to con¬ 
trol another affirmatively. 

2. Mental Magnetism, or the development of the use of ideas 
and plans in life. It is an intensely interesting study. 

3. Self-Magnetism, or the power that proceeds out of the in¬ 
dividual and is directed toward the same person. 

These are the affirmative methods. 

The negative magnetism is known as hypnotism, or the power 
to put some other person into an hypnotic sleep. We do not 
advise any person to study or to use such power; but it is neces¬ 
sarily explained, and the many ways of acquiring it are taught 
in Universal Magnetism, not to make that work more valuable, 
but to show the dangers of its use, and to guide each student of 
that great book away from its influences. The study of hypno¬ 
tism is incidental only to the main line of training of Universal 
Magnetism, and is not one per cent, of the contents of the whole 
work. 

No attempt has ever been made to set up a plan of teaching 
the principles of Self-Magnetism. This power is the strong right 
arm of self-control. Magnetism is not to put to sleep, but to 
awaken and to direct. If you have a pair of fine horses you are 
not content to let pass into a sleep and perform strange and 
weird things; you wish them to be awake and full of life; and 
that is magnetism. Your own faculties are powers that may be 
driven like horses or may be dragging you out of your right road 
and along paths of danger, like runawa}^. In one case you con¬ 
trol them; in another you are controlled by them. To magnetize 
yourself you must hold the whip hand, and be the master of each 
and every faculty. This is Self-Magnetism. 


SELF-MAGNETISM. 


259 


While it can be encouraged and taught by others or by books, it 
cannot be acquired without a serious effort on your part. It is a 
kind of self-education that depends on the purpose and ambition 
of the user of it. 

It is most serviceable in many ways in maintaining health or in 
getting through the crisis of disease. Some of the few instances 
in which it is advantageous are the following: 

1. It saves the hysterically inclined woman, and the womanish 
man, from the approach of the malady. 

2. It saves the irritably inclined man or woman from the 
terrors of nervous breakdown. 

3. It saves the mind of the person who is likely to fall into 
paresis, softening of the brain, or forms of insanity, where the 
lax hold of the will power lets the tendency increase, unless over¬ 
mastered. 

4. It furnishes a dominant will that has judgment and yet 
strength in every crisis. 

5. It enables a person to follow out a line of practice, regime 
or other course that is beneficial to the health or to the mind. 
Herein it saves weaklings from themselves. 

The FIRST LAW of Self-Magnetism is PATIENCE. 

This is not a homily, nor a sermon, nor an ethical treatise; 
but a campaign of practice in magnetism. Yet to advise a per¬ 
son to be patient looks like preaching. We have no such in¬ 
tention. 

All development and all progress in the world is born of some 
idea. A strong idea, once well established in the mind, will 
sweep the past out of existence and open up a new future as 
bright as human possibility can make it. It is the sudden birth 
of a thought that has made wealth flow in an endless stream into 
the lives of thousands. The idea has reformed the bad, raised 
the lowly, sent the sinner to better conditions, and moved the 
whole world like a lever. 

Let us see what these laws are: 

LAW Number 1 . — The cultivation of PATIENCE is the basis 
of Self-Magnetism. 

LAW Number 2.— The first complete idea of the day is the rul¬ 
ing poiver of the day. 

LAW Number 3.— The last complete idea of the waking hours is 
the saturating thought of the night . 


560 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

LAW Number 4.— No person can fail in anything who builds 
on Laws 2 and 3. 

LAW Number 5.— Ideas should be made worthy of supreme 
effort. 


It will be seen that the foundation required is of the highest 
importance, and the purpose is such as not to attract a dead 
mind. Ideas should be made worthy of supreme effort. This 
will not appeal to those who do not care for a grander life on 
earth. Yet there are many who will welcome the aid which we 
tender in these lessons. 

The laws all help each other. The cultivation of patience is 
the basis of Self-Magnetism. The question arises, how can one 
cultivate patience?' Then comes Law 2, which says that the first 
complete idea of the day is the ruling power of that day. The 
last complete idea of the day holds control in the night; but how ? 
What kind of an idea is it that will assert such power in life ? It 
must be an idea that is worthy of supreme effort. You see that 
these matters all work in a circle and are parts of each other. 

A supreme effort is one to which you are willing to throw all 
your thoughts and determination for the time being. It must be 
a constant effort. Applying it to the second Law we find that 
the first complete idea of the day is the ruling power of that day; 
thus coming back to the original process. 

The supreme effort must be directed toward whatever idea you 
choose to build upon; and, in this case, it is the idea contained 
in the first Law, the cultivation of patience as the basis of Self- 
Magnetism. 

No person can think long upon any subject without being under 
the influence of the subject. This is a universal law, and is fully 
shown up in the great work of Universal Magnetism. The lover 
who gives his attention to the girl of his heart is sure to color all 
his daily life with the feeling he entertains for her. The man 
who allows his mind to dwell continually on sensual topics will 
color his conduct in that line of feeling, and his habits will be in 
the same channel; he will see in what he hears and reads only 
the drift of his mind. The same law holds true in the nobler 
lines of mental activity. 



SELF-MAGNETISM. 


261 


While the best minds are well balanced, and take in a great 
variety of subjects, the predominance of one above all others is 
sure to fill that life with its influences. The basis of Self-Mag¬ 
netism is patience; because this quality is needed more than any 
other. 

If we were to set up a school of training that would yield the 
best results in the career of every man and woman, we would at 
once start with this basic quality. 

Patience is not endurance. We do not use it in that sense. 
It is instant suppression on its affirmative side, and instant cour¬ 
age on the negative side. In suppression it checks you at the 
very moment when you are about to give way. You suppress the 
display of anger, of petulance, of complaint, of exclamation, or of 
irritability. These are the enemies of happiness. The most com¬ 
mon of them is irritability. A thousand little things each day 
may go wrong and you are fretted by them. Stop. Be patient. 
They will grow less in proportion as you are patient; they will 
grow more in proportion as you give way or let go. Self-Mag¬ 
netism is self-power, and you have no power if you fail to rule 
yourself. 

Then other persons soon understand your weakness. 

The habit of giving way to little things, or to big ones, will 
soon grind out the exalted character of a man or woman, and what 
is left is dross. The latter is scoffed at in the world; but the com¬ 
manding character is sure to attract and lead thousands of others. 

On the negative side you must be patient because it will give 
you the courage to face all assaults from the shafts of enemies and 
misfortune. It will show the reverse side of every condition in 
life. 

How is this commanding quality obtained? 

It is planted like a tree in the garden or forest. But it is that 
kind of a tree or plant that is sensitive to attention or neglect. 
It needs little acts of care and thought, as well as the big deter¬ 
mination to make it thrive. 

Let the first attention of the day be given to it. This is done 
by placing the mind upon it as soon as you are awake in the 
morning. Say to yourself that you are determined to be PA¬ 
TIENT all day long. Say it as you arouse out of sleep. Say it 
as you jump from the bed with the spirit of a new-born day. 
Say it as you dress. Say it as the little vexing details of the 


262 SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

morning’s duties begin to come in your path. Say to yourself, 
“ I’ll be patient.” 

This is culture. It is training. It will engraft the principle 
in your very blood, in your nervous system, in your mind, and in 
all the avenues of your life. 

Then you must make tests of your ability to be annoyed or 
vexed, either by your own acts, or by the doings of others; and 
you must gauge and record the degree of resistance which you 
acquire from month to month. 

KEEPING YOUR PRIVATE RECORD. 

At this part of the treatise you will find a blank page. As soon 
as you have reached this part of the reading, take a pen and write 
your I. M. Club-Number in the blank spaces at the top and middle 
of the page- The line at the top reads thus: 

Club Number.’s RECORD OF SUCCESSES in PA¬ 

TIENCE. 

Fill in your I. M. Club Number on the blank or dotted line, so 
that there will be no doubt of your identity. 

Do this NOW. It is a breach of Self-Magnetism of the most 
serious character to delay doing a thing, no matter what. Do 
it NOW. Then half way down the same page write the same 
number in the blank space of the following line: 

Club Number.’s RECORD OF FAILURES in PA¬ 

TIENCE. 

Write this in at the same time. 

Now, when you make a notable success in your effort to be 
patient, especially when you are vexed or annoyed and do not show 
any irritability, or do not say some harsh thing, or do not scowl 
or complain, you have achieved a success. It is in this line of cul¬ 
ture that the great emolument of the twentieth degree will prove 
helpful to you; and you will soon reach it. 

The mark of success or failure should be a plus sign for the 
former, and a zero for the failure. Count them up once each 
month on Ralston Day and let us know the way the account 
stands, if you wish to do so. 

Make the marks small and close together so that you can get sev¬ 
eral hundred on the page. Write them in ink in order that they 
may be durable. They will be very helpful to j^ou in after months 
as you look back upon them. 





SELF -MAGNET ISM. 


263 


Club-Number. ? s RECORD OF SUCESS IN 

PATIENCE: 


Club-Number. ? s RECORD OF FAILURES IN 

PATIENCE: 




















264 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

Let us see what are some of the powers you will attain in 
your relations to yourself and to others by Self-Magnetism, start¬ 
ing at the basis, which is patience. 

You may be so situated that you can take advantage of another; 
if so, think it out, and see the final disadvantage to yourself; 
then be patient and let time and fate lift you up to a higher 
realm of purpose. To conquer the disposition to wrong another 
is Self-Magnetism. 

Someone has done you a wrong, or you fancy that such is the 
case. Be patient. Let time work out the matter for you. If the 
wrong is in progress at the time, or if you are in danger from 
the evil acts or intentions of another, defend yourself at once. 
But the fancied wrongs, the misunderstood remarks, the injury 
that your over-sensitive nature imagines; these are mere vapors, 
whether they be true or not. Be patient and let them alone. 
Never let your feelings or fancies have control over you. They 
may be schooled in time. 

Revenge is the basest of all motives. It has made the wars of 
earth. It has set up the standard of private enmity everywhere. 
It is the reason why feuds, lawsuits and slander exist. Be 
patient. Allow no such ghost to walk in your life. 

If the tendency to set yourself or your opinion against some 
person or project shall appear at any time, be patient; remember 
that obstinate people are shadows in the world that cast a dark 
gloom over themselves and all others. It is noble to yield, es¬ 
pecially when you feel that you ought not to do so. 

If any form of temptation shall seek to control you, hold still 
for a while; think it over; be patient, and the impulse will soon 
be conquered. 

Do not deny to others the generous acts that well up in your 
heart on an occasion of true inspiration. Then it is that your 
better nature is at work in you; but your acquired disposition will 
soon control it. It is generous to speak well of another, but in 
moments of meanness the impluse comes to say the wrong thing. 
Be patient; let the ill nature vent itself. Try to never be guilty 
of hasty speech or act to the injury of another or the lowering of 
your own standard of nobility. 

Apply Laws 2 and 3 to your daily life. 

On what ground you please to explain the phenomenon, it is 
nevertheless true that the first earnest, vital thought of the morn- 


SELF-MAGNETISM. 


265 


ing will have a large share in controlling you all day. But the 
greater mystery is found in the fact that the last vital thought of 
the night, just as you are ready to drop asleep, is sure to sat¬ 
urate your being, and make you really what you are. This law 
should be tested if you doubt its efficacy. 

The explanation is that the nervous system takes up the sug¬ 
gestion and absorbs it. In hypnotism it is well known that one 
person can influence another by suggestion. This is done by 
telling the other some fact in such a way as to leave no doubt of 
it in the mind of that person. It requires no subtle reasoning 
to explain such a process, for it has the great fact to stand upon 
that what is absolutely believed is sure to sway the mind and 
actions of an individual. 

This becomes at once a dangerous agency in life. 

It is dangerous because, if you really believe a statement or sug¬ 
gestion, whether from the lips or pen of another, or from your own 
mental workshop, you will then become the slave of that idea. 

One of the greatest traits of human character is the power to 
deny belief when it should be denied. Why people will believe 
what they are told is hard to explain when their fortunes are at 
stake; yet they go on doing themselves this wrong and pay the 
penalty. Here is a case that happened this summer: 

A woman was left a goodly fortune by her late husband. It 
w T as about to be put out at interest in first-class mortgages at 
five per cent., when a man came along and offered her stock in a 
corporation that he said paid six per cent. The corporation was 
bonded for more than it was worth, and the stock had no value 
whatever; it had never paid a dividend, nor could it earn one. In 
a few months the bonds were foreclosed and the stock wiped out. 
The woman’s fortune, representing the lifework of a self-denying 
man who loved his family, was taken from her and she became a 
beggar. On what principle should she have believed the state¬ 
ment of the man who sold her worthless stock ? 

Cases like this are exceedingly numerous; and it is for this 
reason that so many Ralstonites are training their sons and daugh¬ 
ters, as well as themselves, in the principles of Universal Mag¬ 
netism. It is much better to pay fifty dollars for that course of 
education, and be safe from the suggestions of others, than to 
work hard for years and lose all you may gain. 

In hypnotism it is always an easy matter to make the subject 


266 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

believe anything you please. But the majority of people go 
through life in a part-hypnotic state, as may be well proved. In 
fact, almost all men and women, and most young folks are in such 
a condition; many of them not being capable of hypnotic control 
in sleep form, but yet easily influenced by a suggestion. The only 
remed}^ is Universal Magnetism, and it was very largely for that 
purpose that the negative side of that work was prepared. 

Political bias is a part-t^pnotic state ; and it is contagious when 
many persons are massed together. You will notice in political 
meetings how easily sober men, whose judgment is sound on other 
occasions, will lose all control of themselves and do the most ex¬ 
cited, things; photographs of which will, in after days, cause them 
to wonder if they are mentalfy right. In such a meeting a single 
idea will act like an hypnotic suggestion, and set off the sus¬ 
ceptible powder. And it is also true that, outside of such meet¬ 
ings, an idea will act also as an hypnotic suggestion, and set 
the mind wild. Demagogues know this law, and are able to take 
advantage of it by the many suggestions made to voters prior to 
an election. 

This is only one class of illustration. 

Hypnotism consists of two phases; one in the catalyptic sleep, 
and the other in the waking hours. In the former the subject 
becomes an abject fool if so desired, as all will is yielded to the 
operator. But as only a small percentage of people can be put 
into the sleep state, the danger is not so great in this phase as 
in the use of the waking suggestions. 

What can be done by one person over another can also be done 
by the individual over himself or herself. 

The hypnotic sleep, or catalepsy, can be invited by the methods 
described in Universal Magnetism, in case the individual can be 
put to sleep at all. So, also, the waking form of hypnotism can 
be employed in self-action, by suggestion made in the right way. 
Here are a few propositions: 

A very small percentage of people can be put into hypnotic sleep 
by other persons. 

Yearly all persons can be influenced by waking hypnotic sug¬ 
gestions made by others. 

Very few persons can put themselves into an hypnotic sleep; 
the rule being that, if they can be so controlled by another, they 
can also control themselves in like manner. 


SBLF - MAGNETISM. 


267 


Practically all persons can influence themselves by suggestions 
made by themselves, if used in the right way. 

Waking hypnotism is being practiced all the time, and some¬ 
body is the gainer by it while others are losers. 

A new phase of hypnotic practice has come into vogue of late; 
and it is called conscious-sleep-suggestion. The reason for this 
name is that the subject is in a natural sleep and not in the un¬ 
conscious cataleptic state. In natural sleep the subject can be 
aroused to a condition of semi-wakefulness and therein receive 
suggestions, which are made to enter his mind, and there find 
lodgment just as he is falling back into sleep again. This has 
been done with more or less success by mothers who wish to in¬ 
fluence their children in right directions. In one case where a 
boy of sixteen was addicted to profanity, the mother learned to 
practice this kind of hypnotism upon him, and cured him of it. 
The process is very simple. The young man would be slightly 
disturbed as soon as he had fallen into the first sleep of the night, 
and his mother would tell him that he was too manly to use 
oaths, too upright to swear, too good a son to speak profanely. 
These ideas would sink into his mind, and there would do some 
kind of work all night long, and when morning came he felt less 
like swearing than before. After a few nights of repetition he 
was entirely cured of the habit. We know of many such cases, 
and there are now in progress many experiments along the same 
line. There is no doubt of the efficacy of this kind of practice in 
the hands of a skilful person; but if one goes at it clumsily, 
waking the sleeper in full, then the opportunity is lost for a 
while at least. Young children have been wonderfully influenced 
in this way. In one case a lad of seven years was unruly; his 
mother used exactly the same means; she would half wake him, 
then tell him that he was too good a boy to be disobedient, or 
words to that effect; and a new character was molded in him. 
The powers of this kind of hypnotism are unlimited, and may be 
practiced by any person without any previous training or lessons, 
as far as this grade of it is concerned. It is quite different from 
the cataleptic or clairvoyancy kind, such as will be found in 
Universal Magnetism. Waking hypnotism is not at all difficult. 
The first essential is to say a thing as if you knew it were so, and 
to say it as if you felt sure the subject believed it were so. The 
least halting in your own mind will break the power. But this 


268 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

is also the rule in any form of control; it is a fundamental prin¬ 
ciple of magnetism as well as hypnotism. 

We come now to the use of this principle in self-control, or the 
power over your own mind. Select any brief period just before 
you fall asleep at night; a few minutes will do; and then put 
the force of your thoughts wholly on the idea which you wish to 
control you; and you will find that the thought will live on in 
the brain and nervous system long after you have fallen asleep. 
The test of it is this: 

Fixed inclinations rule every intelligent person. Some indi¬ 
viduals are willing to tell falsehoods; others could not be in¬ 
duced to. In one make-up the inclination is ever present; in 
another the nature of the mind refuses to state an untruth. Con¬ 
science is the same thing. It is the result of inclination. 

If a person is inclined to be discouraged, the tendency may be 
thrown off by the practice of Self-Magnetism. Let the mind 
just before sleep each night start on a search for the possibilities 
of success in the near future; let a hunt be made for everything 
that is bright or that may be turned to brightness and encourage¬ 
ment, and you will be surprised to learn how many pleasant pros¬ 
pects there are in your future. But you must hunt and search 
with the determination to find all that is bright in the possibili¬ 
ties of events; and you must not allow yourself to think of the 
dark side of anything. The habit is quickly formed, one way or 
the other. 

The custom of worrying, of looking at only the dark side of the 
supposed morrow, or of seeing the possibilities of failure, is one 
of the forms of Self-Magnetism, by which it is seen that, if you 
do not take positive steps toward the better view, your own 
nature will take negative steps, and you will drift along the cur¬ 
rent of disappointment. 

Very few people fail who are optimistic; very few succeed who 
are pessimistic. Caution and preparation must t at all times be 
cultivated, but they are but the reins by which we drive the steeds 
of our inclinations. 

The mind is conscious when we are not conscious of its opera¬ 
tions. It goes on in its work while we are asleep, as is shown 
in the higher steps in the study, Seven Realms on Mind. This 
organ of life is active even when we are felled by a blow, a drug, 


SEEF -MAGNETISM. 


269 


or otherwise lose consciousness; but there is an immense difference 
between knowing and not knowing what it is doing. The mind is 
like the operation of circulation; sometimes we are able to detect 
what the heart is doing, and then we have no knowledge of its 
activity. We may feel the operation of the intestines, or may have 
no sensation in that direction; but our lack of consciousness does 
not prove that the intestines are inactive. So it is with thought, 
and with mental purpose. 

You can set the pace of the mind’s work for the next twenty- 
four hours by giving it the last suggestions of the night. 

Did you ever stop to think that the mind is like a steed at play ? 
If left to itself it will wander and drift and play and go on aim¬ 
lessly, and be of little service to you; but if held subject to the 
rein it will lead you as you direct, and become your slave. The 
reason why so many persons cannot sleep at night is because they 
are being driven by their own steeds, the trains of thoughts that 
run adrift. The reason why so many people are made the tools of 
others is because they do not drive their own steeds of thought, 
but allow themselves to be driven by them. 

In magnetism, one person is the controller, and another person 
is the subject. In Self-Magnetism, you are the controller and the 
subject; your mastery of yourself gives you the double office. 

The reason why we select the last period of the waking hours is 
because, during the activities of the day, it is not so easy to divert 
the attention from what is going on; as many duties demand your 
thoughts. But at night, just before going to sleep, the mind should 
never be in the controlling part of its action; then of all times it 
should be made to do as you wish and command. Let it control 
you and you will be restless and adrift, not only during the night, 
but all day long after the morning has come. If you control it, 
you will find that the next day is a part of your thoughts of the 
night before. So true is this proposition that it has shaped the 
lives of the most successful men and women. 

We have seen it work out the better inclinations of all classes of 
people, and in almost every age from infancy to maturity. It is 
a mistake to let children go to sleep at night thinking of the day 
that has just passed, unless there is much that is pleasant. The 
purposes of the morrow are what should be put in their little heads. 
We know of many discouraged boys and girls who could not 
learn their lessons, and who were disposed to take it to heart; but 


270 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 


they were sent to bed with pleasant thoughts of the triumphs that 
they would achieve on the morrow, and they were shown the way 
of possible success in their studies, with the result that they awoke 
each morning with the victory nearer at hand. 

Let the hand of the mind be pointed always ahead, never back¬ 
ward, when the time comes for sleep. This will give the thoughts 
a new power. We recall the case of a young man who had been 
hard at work for a long time on a matter that was too deep for him, 
and he was losing sleep as well as health in the struggle to con¬ 
quer it. We suggested that he stop thinking of it during the 
day, and take up light reading and outdoor exercise for a week; but 
at night put himself to sleep thinking that there was some way of 
solving the tangle that would come to him of itself. He was able 
to understand the meaning of the plan, and he schooled himself to 
go to sleep at night with a certainty that there was to be triumph 
in a few days. At the end of a week, he was to give the first 
hours of the day to the matter, but should rest his mind the rest 
of the day, and at night should continue to put himself to sleep by 
taking the rosy view of the subject. Then he won, and his mind 
became all the stronger by reason of this kind of habit. In re¬ 
ferring to the crisis, as he called it, he wrote to us the following 
explanation as it seemed to him: “ I am convinced that the mind 

works out our desires without our aid, and that it can do better 
work when we let alone, provided we hold the reins, and make 
known our purposes. It is like a team of horses that is strug¬ 
gling up an incline; we should keep them going in the right di¬ 
rection, but otherwise should let them get up without our inter¬ 
ference.” The simile is very helpful, for it is known that free 
rein is necessary when horses are struggling up a difficult steep. 
Yet how many persons lose their grip on their mental powers by 
nagging and fretting this great organ. 

A little study of your nature will reveal to you the fact that there 
seems to be a power somewhere around that takes a special interest 
in your success. The mind is the portal of entrance for the good 
offices of this attendant angel; and you put up the bars when you 
drive out the pleasant prospects that wait your summoning. This 
friendly power is born of sunshine and basks in it. Darkness 
drives it off. There are two sides to everything; even the earth has 
two; and one is always in darkness while the other is always 
facing the sun; but the revolution of the earth gives all parts an 


SELF -MAGNETISM. 


271 


opportunity to batlie in the sunshine. So every fact and every 
detail and every prospect in your life has two sides, one bright 
and the other dark; and you can turn them over in your mind at 
will, selecting the sunny side or looking only on the gloomy part. 
How will you present these details to your own mind? You can 
find what you seek in this world. Dr. Talmadge never said any¬ 
thing truer than this: “ You may take any joy, and by turning it 
around, find troubles on the other side” Likewise you may take 
trouble and reverse it. 

It is not easy at the very first trial to throw the mind into just 
the channel you wish; but the habit soon forms. We do not speak 
from theory, but from the experience of many tested trials in 
many of our followers. Of course it is easy for some preacher to 
tell his people to look on the bright side of things; that is advice, 
and nothing more. Advice is rarely ever accepted and acted upon, 
for humanity has had that kind of mental diet for thousands of 
years. Advice is abstract; Self-Magnetism is concrete, tangible, 
and effective. This power which we are now dealing with is as 
far from advice as the sun is far from the center of the earth. 
We may advise a person to do all the good things of life, but 
there must be some helpful action by which it is possible to take 
up a definite line of practice. The common remark, “ I will be 
optimistic,” is mere air in most lives, for the nervous forces of 
the brain have nothing to grasp. 

But just as the mind is entering into its night’s sleep, it is 
ready to take up given directions, which it cannot do as well at 
any other time; the next best opportunity being the first waking 
period of the morning. But night is by far the best. If you 
go to sleep, and someone half awakens you, and tells you certain 
things, you will adopt them, and in time they will control you, 
provided you do not fully awaken and throw off the suggestion. 
That this is a well established psychological law cannot now be 
doubted; it is so easy of proof that no one has a right to doubt 
it. Nor is any charm or other notion needed; it is plain, natural 
fact founded upon the known operations of the mind. You can 
do as much with any person whom you can approach upon the 
conditions named; and the anly chance of failure is in the clumsy 
way in which you may go at it. 

What you can do upon some one else, some one else can do upon 
you; and what some one else can do upon you, you can do upon 


272 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

yourself. But, you will say, you do not get into the half-sleep state 
when you try this upon yourself. You should start as soon as you 
begin to get sleepy, and you should keep up the practice until you 
drop off to slumber; thus meeting exactly the other conditions 
named. 

The almost uniform success of this practice in the past few 
years gives perfect certainty in its usefulness. We know that it 
cannot fail. 

Yow let us advise you to read, and again to read, and still read 
ALL that has been stated on all the pages of this treatment or 
treatise, until you understand it. You may think you under¬ 
stand it, from the first reading; but what is the use of getting only 
a faint idea of the power, and letting it rest at that, as far as 
the reading is concerned; plunging ahead with the practice in a 
wrong way, or with only half of the spirit of the instructions in 
your mind? We strongly advise the reading of these pages, or some 
of them, just as you are about to retire at night, so that your 
thoughts will be absorbed in the right idea. 

Suggestion must take actual form; it must live in language; it 
cannot be a wish, unless words and sentences are constructed in 
which that wish may dwell. The mind has some tangible place 
in which to live; and so has the soul. The frail human body 
is a constructed abode. In like manner the sentence is the house 
of a thought. A wish, an idea, a hope, if vague and unframed, 
will vanish to nothing. Therefore, it is of the highest im¬ 
portance that you have some sentences in mind; not the following, 
but some made after them, suited to the trend of your thoughts 
that will give strength to the structure of your wishes and hopes: 

“ I know there is a chance of success in everything.” 

“ There is no doubt whatever that I can succeed.” 

“ I will surely find the bright side of this matter.” 

“ I will think and act with courage.” 

“ My thoughts are fixed on the certainty of doing just what I 
have in mind.” 

“Let me see if I can count the number of things that I will 
accomplish to-morrow.” 

“This trouble looks dark at first view, but I KNOW there is 
a blessing in it; and I will find it.” 

“ I am going to sleep to-night with the idea fixed in my mind 
that I shall find the right way in this difficulty ” 


self-magnetism. 


273 


Thousands and tens of thousands of such sentences may be 
formed, and as they are uttered silently the mind should see the 
words of the sentences very clearly. This is like setting an auto¬ 
matic phonograph to a certain idea and letting it keep repeating it 
all night long, as the mind will surely do. 

Now just see the danger of allowing this mind of yours to set 
its own tune for the night; to make its own pace, and saturate 
your nervous system with its weakening and discouraging results. 

Think over the two ways. 

They are not new things; but have been practiced by the noblest 
men and women of all ages. Some allow themselves to drop asleep 
between their better hopes and their solid determinations to win; 
and this is the grandest form of the habit; it is the most ex¬ 
alted example of Self-Magnetism. 

PUTTING THE POWER INTO RESULTS. 

Self-mastery and perfect control of the forces that are mar¬ 
shalled in your life, must be shown by a new line of conduct in 
all your waking hours. Let us see what this should be. 

In the first place you should take the deadness and flabbiness 
out of your nerves. Vital weakness is the opposite of magnetism. 
It is a sort of nerve-relaxation, and not muscular ease. The 
two are not the same. The muscles may be weak, and the nerves 
strong; and magnetism follows the character of the nerves. Many 
people have enough muscular energy, but wholly lack nerve energy; 
and they are not magnetic. 

When energy is changed into muscle-setting, it is no longer evi¬ 
dence of magnetism, but of physical exertion. This distinction 
is very hard to teach. On its being understood depends all suc¬ 
cess in this one branch of habit-culture. 

Let us make an effort to have it clearly set forth in your mind. 

If you set your muscles as if to lift a weight or to strike a blow, 
or to run or walk, to kick or jump, or for any physical purpose, 
the effort is muscular; but if you have your muscles in readiness 
for any of these without setting them, the effort is what is called 
vitalization. In the latter the flesh is very firm and the muscles 
are given a full degree of life. It is a very easy condition to as¬ 
sume. 

This vitalization is always present in the life of every magnetic 
man and woman. It is a characteristic of which they may not 
18 


274 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

be aware for the reason that they have never given that part of 
the subject any thought. Many men and women are totally 
ignorant of the fact that they are magnetic. They seem to have 
supreme control over those with whom they come in contact and 
they account for this by believing that they are persons of greater 
judgment and care, and therefore their advice is always followed, 
whether they are the gainers or not. This is seen among mer¬ 
chants who have succeeded in gaining the confidence of the com¬ 
munity in which they live. It is also seen in the case of many 
a woman who is looked up to by all her neighbors and friends as 
a leader in every social or other event. 

The important fact is that this vitalization is never absent in 
the life of a magnetic man or woman. It gives a strong and easy 
bearing to the body in .walking, and a commanding presence at all 
times, be the person small or large in stature. A single step is 
enough to show the characteristic, and we can at all times detect 
the magnetic man or woman by a single step if taken without 
premeditation. There is a peculiar elasticity yet great firmness 
in the legs as they walk, and in the whole body as it stands or 
moves. The flesh is held firm and solid, without the slightest 
straining or setting of the muscles. 

This combination is not by any means easy to understand, but 
it is very easy to do when understood. As a rule we find that 
only one person in a hundred catches the true idea, while the 
ether ninety-nine either ignore the directions or think they have 
them when they do not. We will try to make them clear. 

The thing to avoid is firmness of the muscles as in making a 
strong muscular effort. This is muscle-setting and is just the 
opposite of what is needed. 

The correct practice is that which makes the flesh firm without 
any attempt at physical strength. It is thus both an affirmative 
and a negative condition. 

Every person walks every day if in health. It requires no more 
time to walk in the way we have suggested than it does to walk 
in the way that is already established. Thus it will be habit- 
culture, and not practice, that turns your common walk into a 
magnetic. 

Habit-culture takes no time and requires no practice. It is 
merely another way of doing the same thing. Any habit can be 
quickly developed for good or bad. 


SELF -MAGNETISM. 


275 


The magnetic walk is the result of habit-culture when adopted 
in the manner stated. The only question is whether we can make 
you understand it or not. 

As you do some walking every day, and as the more walking 
you do up to a certain limit, the better it will be for your health, 
there can be no loss of time or of effort in adopting the magnetic 
walk, provided it can be understood. We are frank to say, how¬ 
ever, that it is not easy to understand. 

Do not try to adopt it all at once, for it cannot be so acquired. 

Let the first change be very slight and very gradual. Success 
is much more likely to come in this way than by attempting too 
much. 

While walking as usual, make the flesh a very little firmer in 
the legs, but not appreciably so. Do not allow the muscles to 
get any firmer or to make any extra effort. It is the first fault 
of the student to do this. It leads to stiffness and straining. 
Stiff walking is not attractive, and all stiffness is a useless waste 
of vitality. 

Grace is dignity with power. 

The habit of walking with firm flesh, if begun very lightly, 
will change the entire life of the body. It is that kind of vigor 
that arouses countless millions of electric-cells throughout the 
entire body. You cannot vitalize even a little finger without 
setting on fire the whole battery-system from the brain to the 
feet. This experiment, small as it is, is very valuable, for it 
illustrates what is meant by magnetic firmness. Try it by raising 
the little finger, opening the hand so as to spread the fingers 
apart, and make the flesh of the little finger as firm as you can 
without setting the muscles. This firmness is very slight in fact, 
yet it influences the whole body. We have spent weeks in train¬ 
ing a pupil to accomplish this much, small as it is, and at the end 
of six months it had changed the whole expression of the face. 

The reason for this is easily explained. The making the flesh 
firm arouses the life of the whole' body; not the physical or the 
muscular life, but that finer vitality that creates magnetism. 
On the other hand the setting of the muscles for physical exer¬ 
tion causes a loss of magnetism. Laborers or hard physical 
toilers of any kind are not magnetic as a rule. Physical prowess 
may establish fear or admiration, but its zone of influence is very 
limited, and it affects only a certain class, 


276 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

The same gentle firmness that gives life to the little finger 
is used in magnetic walking. Instead of being stiff it is supple 
and elastic; each step is buoyant and light; yet this very kind 
of step is sluggish and lazy if it is not magnetic. Buoyancy might 
be the descriptive word, if it were not for the fact that there are 
many kinds of buoyant dispositions that are not magnetic. 

Our various attempts to explain what is meant by the magnetic 
walk show the difficulties under which we labor. If the person 
who sought to acquire it would only think of the one fact that 
there must be no decided change in the walk, the progress would 
begin much more auspiciously. The rule for the beginning is 
that there must be only the slightest change in the style and 
manner of walking; and this change must be as delicate as 
possible. The flesh of the legs must ‘be firmer without per¬ 
mitting the muscles to participate in the firmness. It must be 
so slight a difference in the kind of walk to which you are accus¬ 
tomed that it may be said to be no difference at all. 

One of the first indications that you are doing the correct 
thing is seen in the face. The features are the result, not of 
what the muscles of the body do, but of what the will-power 
does as expressed in the nervous organization. Any person who 
is familiar with the laws of the face will at once see that the 
right kind of walking has been adopted even when the person 
has been absent all the time. This fact was nicely illustrated 
in the case of a class of pupils, consisting of ladies and gentlemen, 
all adults, who were very anxious to be instructed in this par¬ 
ticular thing. We spent a week showing what was meant by 
the magnetic walk, and all the pupils thought they had acquired 
the habit, and so they all went away for seven days. On re-assem¬ 
bling they were in as many different stages of progress as there 
were pupils, for no two had made the same advance. Eight of 
them were at once recorded as having done nothing at all, al¬ 
though they were told that they had been trying hard, and they 
wished to know in what wav we could tell before we saw them 
attempt to walk. The ninth had changed somewhat in face, 
and we at once made the record that he had been fortunate in 
his understanding of what was required. The tenth had changed 
somewhat more in face, and we made the record accordingly. 
One lady in particular had acquired a more beautiful and more 
finely-tempered face, and she was placed at the head of the class 


SHivF -magnetism. 


277 


in her progress. Even the first eight had done something in 
mere practice that counted for progress, and had gone far enough 
to have reached the first stage in magnetic walking. We went 
over the ground with them first and showed wherein they were 
at fault. When the class again assembled after another lapse of 
seven days, there was improvement marked in their faces, and 
not in any instance did we fail to ascertain the exact facts from 
the features. 

Why? 

Because, when men or women are magnetic from what is called 
a natural gift, which means from previous inducing causes due to 
their acquired habits of living, they show this magnetism in the 
character that lives in the face. It is not stubbornness, for that 
is the opposite of magnetism. It is not muscular firmness, for 
that is physical and not electrical. It is not solidity of features, 
for that may come out of the accumulation of flesh or the animal 
propensities of the individual. 

The face is the key to the mind, and the mind is the master 
of magnetism. What the mind and the heart think and feel, 
the face reflects in its fine and diversified nervous structure that 
responds to these two sources of influence. Magnetism is a quiet 
fire of the mind and heart that traces its purposes in the features 
with lines so small that they have no existence to the eye even 
when it is aided by the microscope. 

Some of these changes may be described. One evidence of the 
lack of magnetism is the projecting lip. The thin lip is not an 
indicator of magnetism, but the projecting lip is evidence of the 
contrary. The change of the face from that condition in which 
the lips protrude forward, to that in which they are firmly set, 
each against the other, may be accomplished by the study of 
articulation and enunciation; and the training is of the highest 
value; but it does not necessarily prove that the individual is 
magnetic. Yet the opposite position of the lips is a certain and 
never failing sign that the person is unmagnetic. 

How do we know this? 

In the first place we have observed many hundreds of men 
and women who possess this great power, and there are photo¬ 
graphs of many hundreds of others available; and never in a 
single instance have we seen one where the lips protrude. Who. 
that has looked upon the faces of Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, 


278 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, George Washing¬ 
ton, Patrick Henry, U. S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Edwin Booth, 
Edwin Forrest, or any of the hundreds of famous personages 
whose magnetic power has been the mainspring of their success, 
can fail to see the chiseled mouth in which the lines of the lips 
are drawn with sharpness and clear-cut decision? There is no 
firmness and no decision in protruding lips. 

While this fact, being universal in the faces of all those who 
have possessed the great gift, may not quite prove that it is neces¬ 
sary to the acquirement of the art, yet, on the other hand, the 
protruding lips are never seen in the face of any individual who 
is thus endowed. Imagine Napoleon Bonaparte with projecting 
lips! 

Further proof is seen in the progress of all who attempt the 
development of the power, and who proceed in the right direction. 
We recall many cases of private pupils who have had ugly and 
unattractive features, with mouths that had projecting lips, and 
thick ones always, who have entirely changed the condition by 
the right kind of practice, or such as leads to the develop¬ 
ment of magnetism. You may think that thick lips are not 
changeable; but they are thick from the use made of them. 
No part of the body is so easily trained to alter its size and shape 
as the lips. This you can prove in many ways. Let the rule 
be observed that the center of the upper lip should always touch 
the center of the lower lip when they are together, and you will 
get started in the right direction. This position is, in the study 
of articulation, called center to center. At once the lips seem 
to be thin, when they are just as thick as ever. Another rule is 
that the mouth should be so shaped that the finger can form a 
straight line from the under part of the nose to the chin. This 
will compel the projection to remove itself. 

As an illustration of the gradual change that comes over the 
face, we will cite one of many cases. We had a lady as a pupil 
who had the projecting lips to excess. She thought that she 
had already some magnetism; but we assured her that she pos¬ 
sessed none at all. “ How do you know ? ” she asked. We did 
not tell her. She was quite an intelligent woman, and we had 
no trouble whatever in showing her the way to make the flesh 
firm without setting the muscles; and she caught the art almost 
from the very start. As we watched her practice, we saw that 


SELF-MAGNETISM. 


270 


she brought the center of the upper lip against the center of the 
lower lip, and we made the record that she would very soon be 
an adept in the art. Some persons change the lips at all times 
w r hen they are trying to do something that requires determination 
and will-power. We had the pleasure, during the many hours 
that she was our pupil in the first year of her lessons, of seeing 
her at her work seeking to learn w r hat was meant by the magnetic 
habits of the various parts of the body, and week by week she 
unconsciously drew her mouth into what is known as the ideal 
shape, until at last the face had changed completely, and she 
was counted as a beautiful and highly attractive woman. It is 
now a well established saying that all magnetic women are attrac¬ 
tive and beautiful; not in the sense that a doll or an empty face 
is pretty, but in the nobler and more exalted meaning of true 
womanhood and womanly beauty. 

All pupils who start in this line of development, having pro¬ 
jecting lips, will find that these will shift about and become the 
finely shaped lips such as are seen in the pictures of the success¬ 
ful men and women of all ages, as far as we have evidence at this 
time. The strength of character will not be reflected in the face 
if it does not exist as a matter of fact; nor will the rich qualities 
of mind and heart become pictured in the features unless they 
have a living reality in the individual. Beauty, character and 
nobility cannot be assumed. What we refer to is the mechanical 
reconstruction of the face; and this is not a dream, for it can 
be seen by anybody who cares to take the trouble to observe it. 
There is no secret in its existence. 

What is herein described is the open evidence that you yourself 
may obtain in your own life, if you will take the pains to under¬ 
stand what is meant by the magnetic walk, or the magnetic firm¬ 
ness of any part of the body. It is a fact that is not generally 
understood for it is taken up too quickly and too earnestly in 
adoption. It is understandable, and you ought to catch the idea 
without any trouble; but we fear that you will go ahead with 
a great determination to win, and will therefore use the muscles 
and not the flesh. 

The change from your accustomed methods to the condition 
known as magnetic firmness is exceedingly delicate. You will 
know it as soon as you get it, for a phosphorescent fire will be 
lighted in every nerve-fibre of the body. Magnetism is nerve- 


280 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 


glow. There is no doubt about it. We have taken the following 
experiment as a proof of it. Ordinarily in a dark room a 
human being has no fire in the eyeballs, such as is seen in animals 
of intense vitality, of which the cat is a common example. The 
cat is able to halt the attention of a bird and then to charm it 
into a state of yielding that costs the bird its life. All animals 
of intense vitality possess the same power in other uses, and all 
such animals have glowing eyeballs at times. 

This fact is common knowledge. 

Men and women do not, as a rule, possess glowing eyeballs. 
There are exceptions to the rule as you may prove. We have 
followed the matter for many years, and have become familiar 
with every phase of the question from the least incident to the 
greatest. We do not claim to have discovered everything, for 
much was known before we took up the work, and much yet 
remains to be ascertained. Others have accomplished much, 
notably the French scientists who were able to attract the mag¬ 
netic needle of the compass out of its course by tensing the flesh 
of the arm, which is exactly what we mean by the magnetic firm¬ 
ness of the flesh. 

Inhaling pure air and stretching at the same time will set the 
millions of cells on fire throughout the body; and that is why 
nature, through instinct, teaches it to animal creation. It de¬ 
velops magnetism; but it is an exercise, and we promised to pre¬ 
sent a system that did not require practice. Then, again, if one 
is willing to practice, there are scientific systems to be had in 
our big books that are free to you as emoluments under the clan 
rules. 

Stretching is nature’s method of arousing life in the inmost 
parts of the body, especially the magnetic centers, and no person 
is thoroughly healthy who does not have at least one good stretch 
a day. If this be true then it could not be called practice to do 
what ought to be done as a part of the duties of life. 

The magnetic walk may be made a habit by adopting it at all 
times after once it is acquired. Every step may be taken with 
firmness of flesh. No more time will be requisite, and no prac» 
tice will be necessary. Habit-culture is not practice; it is merely 
another way of doing what you must do. When the right kind 
of walking has been adopted, then let the same principle come 
into the whole body; let the neck, the arms, the torso and all 


SEEF -MAGNETISM. 


ZSl 


flesh be vitalized by a gentle firmness that is free from muscle¬ 
setting. 

Never before have we tried so hard to make a fact clear as we 
have done in this matter. We believe that if you avoid muscular 
effort you will succeed in producing the tense condition that 
is so necessary to the development of magnetism. We have never 
seen a man or woman who possessed this power who did not 
have the whole body slightly tense at all times, and quite tense 
when special use was being made of the art. On the principle 
that a result, by adoption, will create a condition, the constant 
employment of tense flesh will fire the whole body and charge it 
with a wonderful vitality which is of electric origin. 

When it comes it will come to stay. It will grow fast and keep 
on increasing without limit, if the habit is maintained. It will 
prove to be a power that must have a wise governing engineer, 
and that is good judgment carrying out some mental purpose 
as stated in the first part of this treatise. The brain must think, 
must plan, must govern, if this enormous energy is to be rightly 
used. 

We come now to another habit; and it is even more difficult to 
explain; but we feel certain that we can make it clear. It is 
called the habit of self-containment. 

Before this can be understood, it is necessary to impress upon 
the reader the need of a constantly unruffled disposition. This 
is a stepping-stone to self-containment. The unruffled disposi¬ 
tion is a rare quality in these days, except among those who are 
counted great. It is a habit. 

The beginning of this habit is in the perfect control of the 
body and all its parts. If you lack grace, ease, good poise, polish 
and the traits that outwardly mark the lady and gentleman, 
try to attend some school where expression is taught, or seek a 
graduate of such a school, and obtain all the training possible. 
It would require hundreds of pages to teach it by book, and that 
kind of teaching is not effective. The schools of expression are 
everywhere increasing in numbers and they are doing a grand 
work. They teach the best use of the faculties, which is so essen¬ 
tial to success. Among these are the development of rich and 
pleasing voices, the mastery of the art of modulation, and the 
attainment of perfect self-control under all circumstances. Thus 
expression and magnetism go hand in hand. 


282 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

Habit-culture is next best as a means of securing control of the 
body. It does not require practice, but will claim attention 
during the period that you are passing out of old ways into new. 
It is necessary to form the habit of obesrving yourself, to see 
what are the faults that are likely to mar your usefulness or 
lessen the respect that others may have for you. There is no 
personal magnetism that is strong enough to overcome the dis¬ 
gust that follows certain defects of judgment. The man who 
sucks his teeth in a drawing-room is doomed in the opinions 
of all who have been offended by the breach of etiquette; and 
likewise the individual who is in need of a bath, or whose breath 
is fetid, or who is nasty at the table, or who performs any one 
or more of the animal characteristics that still cling to our race, 
is certain to drop so low in the judgment of others on whom 
these faults are inflicted, that no amount of magnetism will offset 
the damage. 

But there is another class of faults that affect the person 
guilty of them more than the observers of them, and yet are 
handicaps in both ways. The most noticeable of these is physical 
restlessness. It wearies the eye of the beholder, but it also 
weakens the vital centers of the person who is restless. There 
can be no self-containment where this fault exists. 

A few illustrations will suffice to explain what is meant. Here 
is a woman who is quick-motioned when walking, and when at 
work. This would do no harm if it saved time, but she makes 
mistakes through her carelessness and her ill-considered haste. 
She slams things about, slams the doors, bangs everything she 
touches, drops herself into a chair, rocks violently, snatches 
whatever she takes, hurts children in combing their hair or 
dressing them, and makes everybody nervous by her excessive 
restlessness. She is the very opposite of self-containment. If 
the case cited is an extreme one, it is well to remember that there 
is a long gamut of degrees between her and that of the equally 
active woman who accomplishes more and is perfectly self-com¬ 
posed in every act. 

Self-containment does not mean listlessness, for that is self¬ 
emptiness. There must be action and purpose, but no wasted 
motion. What would you think of a locomotive that stood at 
the station ready to haul a great train to a distant city, and yet 
turned a driver every four seconds, jumped a half-ineh on its 


SELF MAGNETISM. 


283 


pony wheels, joggled its smoke-stack from one side to another, 
rung its bell when there was nothing to ring at, played with its 
throttle in place of a handkerchief, swung its cab around, 
scratched its cylinders, wiggled its piston-rods, rattled its eccen¬ 
trics and went through a large number of little motions that were 
useless from every point of view? Yet men and women are 
constantly losing their vitality by faults that are much worse 
in degree. The stately engine, when it comes to do its work, 
giant as it is, moves with the grace of a fawn and rides as com¬ 
posedly on the rails as if it were afloat in some quiet lake. It is 
an example of power and self-containment. 

We have seen lawyers lose good cases because of their rest¬ 
lessness. We have seen doctors who irritate their patients in¬ 
stead of gaining their confidence. In one month we heard eight 
different ministers preach as many sermons, and we saw why 
there were empty pews. One clergyman winked his eyelids all 
the time, and the more earnest he became the faster he winked. 
Outside of this one fault he was qualified to meet the require¬ 
ments of his profession, but a would-be magnetism fell flat ere 
it took on power. Another preacher had the common fault of 
saying “uh” hundreds of times in every sermon. Another had 
jerky, restless, meaningless gestures. Another stepped around 
as if the floor were over a hot furnace. Another had but one 
kind of gesture, and this tired the eye to see it. All these clergy¬ 
men had some qualifications for their work, but they lacked self¬ 
containment, and could not, therefore, win the full confidence 
of their people. They were failures in the pulpit. Had some 
kind angel whispered to them the secret of power, and had their 
bandages fallen from their eyes, they could all have developed 
themselves into successful preachers. Church members are driven 
through the prickings of conscience into houses of worship, and 
this compulsion cannot be credited to the clergymen who may 
have full churches in spite of their preaching. 

All persons can learn self-containment in its ordinary sense. 
Why not do it? It will add vastly to the usefulness of every 
man and woman who adopts the habit. More than this it will 
add to the vital fund within the body. It will increase the health. 
It will command the respect of others. It will lead to magnetism. 

A few directions may be serviceable at this place. Self-con¬ 
tainment begins with the habit of observing yourself, and the 


284 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

omission of your faults of person. Then it proceeds to drive 
away all habits of restlessness, physical, nervous and mental. 
Then it enters more deeply into your life and checks all exhibi¬ 
tion of feeling except when you voluntarily permit such exhibi¬ 
tion. We do not mean to advise you to be heartless; but, on the 
other hand, deep waters are still. Satisfaction, malice, triumph, 
pride, revenge, joy over another’s misfortune, displays of gloom 
and disappointment, and all outward evidences of what is trans¬ 
piring within the body, should be held in perfect check. The 
face that pictures every mood is weak. Its action is large and 
soon becomes coarse; thus preventing the mind and heart from 
chiseling their finer lines over its surfaces. 

A person who is always giving vent to joy or despondency is 
not likely to secure the confidence of others in more serious crises. 
Sympathy is most appreciated when it comes up from a great 
depth. A keen listener, an attentive observer, a full thinker are 
leaders of others when the time comes to shape a policy. People 
who are squirmy or fidgety are always in somebody’s way and 
never out of their own. If they have an opinion on every subject, 
small or big, their views are shallow. If they must discuss every 
point that comes up during each day of existence, thev have 
very little to offer. 

One of the most common traits of prevailing human nature 
is the willingness to believe everything that is heard or read, 
and the readiness to express an opinion one way or the other. 
Harsh criticism generally follows. The morning paper brings 
news on a hundred subjects, and each reader thinks, feels and 
talks as if the statements were true, and many angry moods 
flit through the mind. It is the design of the paper to make 
the laboring classes hate their employers, and the employers to 
hate the unions; and malicious articles that fire the anger of 
both classes are constantly published in order to sell papers. 

It is the duty of self-containment to believe nothing on any 
hearsay evidence, and especially not on the evidence of a news¬ 
paper. The mind must be kept cool, calm and unruffled; for. 
when it is of a cast to be easily disturbed, its magnetism flies out 
and is lost. The art of not believing is a great one. It is not 
the practice of disbelief, for that is another thing. If we affirma¬ 
tively doubt a statement we are setting up a claim that it is 
untrue. If we do not know it to be untrue we have no right 


SELF-MAGNETISM. 


2fc5 

to believe it so. But non-belief is an unwillingness to accept a 
statement as true. Self-containment is non-belief when the evi¬ 
dence is lacking. “ I do not believe you are telling the truth,” 
is equivalent to saying, “ I believe you are telling an untruth.” 
But, “ I do not know that you are telling the truth,” is an 
expression of neutrality, a desire to let the matter pass as though 
it had not been uttered. 

Credulity is opening the mind to matters that, in ninety-nine 
cases out of a hundred, have no right there. It is the weakness 
of the public. 

If the person who uses the power of magnetism to control 
others were unable to secure their belief, he would at once be at a 
disadvantage. It is for this reason that the user of the power 
should select the materials for his belief. He will be controlled 
by others to the very extent of his belief in the assertions of 
others. The magnetic person must of necessity make his mind 
neutral by adopting the habit of not accepting as true any state¬ 
ment that is not of importance to him. This requires care and 
judgment. Carelessness in permitting all kinds of material to 
enter the mind places the person in the category of being influ¬ 
enced rather than of controlling others. 

The meaning of self-containment is the containing of self; and 
what is held in the mind and heart should be of the highest value 
and the greatest importance. If you have a clean and beautiful 
house, will you open it to filthy tramps and wandering vermin? 
You cannot give out better than you take in. You cannot throw 
about the lives of other men and women influences that are 
nobler or stronger than the material which you admit into your¬ 
self and allow to become a part of yourself. Self-containment 
therefore must control what you take in and store within your 
heart and mind. 

How what is the material that you admit? It comes from 
gossip, from sensational newspapers, from novels, from light¬ 
weight magazines and other periodicals, from ill-advised discus¬ 
sions, from self-formed opinions, from political demagogues, and 
from all sorts of people who seek to use you to their own advan¬ 
tage. A stream of this bad material is constantly flowing toward 
the mind. Do you admit it? The highest exhibition of per¬ 
sonal power in this world is in the art of selecting what you allow 
to enter your mind, and in rejecting all else. 


286 


SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 


You must be able to say with decisiveness, “ I do not choose 
to accept this, that or the other as facts. Whatever I wish to 
believe I will elect to believe. I will invite matters into my 
brain, not let them invite themselves in.” To a person who thus 
controls the thousand incidents of occurring life, nothing ever 
goes wrong. 

The man who says, “ Things have gone wrong in my business 
to-day,” is not magnetic. The woman who says, “ I have been 
much worried of late, for so many things have gone wrong,” is 
not magnetic. Things may be going wrong, and undoubtedly 
are, in every life; but that is the time for action. When they 
“have gone” it is too late. Worry is justified only when you 
could have prevented it; and if you could have prevented it you 
were very unmagnetic not to have one so; if you could not 
have prevented it, you will not worry if you are magnetic; and 
if you are magnetic, you will prevent it; hence the magnetic per¬ 
son never has cause for worry. 

Habit shifts from year to year. You can, by the smallest atten¬ 
tions, change the whole course of your life. When thoughts, 
beliefs and worries are allowed to come as they please, the habit 
of fretting over everything, and of being depressed in mind, will 
grow apace. When you make yourself the guardian of your own 
castle—the mind—you will allow no tormenting suggestions to 
find entrance; and then you will not worry. A new habit will 
be formed. 

It is well known that a guilty conscience destroys magnetism. 
The successful person in the use of this power is the one who is 
bold, determined and aggressive through lack of fear. A steady 
self-reliance is an anchorage from which the bolts of influence 
may be hurled in any direction without danger of recoiling. This 
condition is attainable by every person. 

Never allow yourself to get excited; but, on the other hand, 
do not withdraw from the causes of excitement. Try to find 
them. Try to get into the thick of the battle, and court all 
the influences that may tend to stir you up or create in your 
mind feelings that ordinarily you would be free to display. In 
the actual battle of war, the commander who has the situation 
well in hand is he who knows everything that is going on and 
who sees all the dangers that surround, yet sits upon his horse 
placidly and calmly, white it may be, but strong and determined, 


SELF-MAGNETISM . 


287 


with jaws set in purpose, and yet never disturbed as the news 
comes to him thick and fast of the dismayed troops, or the waver¬ 
ing lines, the mad rush of the enemy or the stubborn resistance 
of his own army. When reports of disaster reach him, he issues 
his orders without nervousness or anxiety, as far as his face 
shows; and when the moment for the final assault has arrived 
he is still calm and unmoved; not a distracting thought enters 
his 'mind; he admits no belief, no fear, no misapprehension; he 
has no room for any idea except the one fixed purpose of the 
hour; and as his army, like a rolling sea driven by the irresistible 
impulse of that purpose, throws itself upon the foe he sees the 
overwhelming tide rush before the impending storm and sweep 
all resistance away in one mighty onslaught; yet he is still the 
same calm observer of these stirring events and the same control¬ 
ling power throughout them all. 

This power of the mind is of itself magnetic, and may be 
acquired by every earnest man and woman. It is habit, good or 
bad; good when you study to be calm; bad when you let things 
go as they will. There never was a time when things went 
right, if they were allowed to take care of themselves. It is con¬ 
trary to the law of nature and the law of life. 

The difficult part of self-containment is that which requires 
the even carriage of the disposition, the lofty purpose in every¬ 
thing, the ease and strength of all the faculties, the unruffled 
calmness of the feelings and the superb quality of mind which 
refuses to come in contact with the meannesses of life. This 
does not refer to the arrogant pride that makes some men and 
women detestable; but it means that, even when you are associat¬ 
ing with the lowly, you are not to mingle with the evils that 
often eviron them. No person is too unfortunate for the care 
and help of those who are better favored; but misfortune is 
generally the fruit of wrongs committed by the parties who are 
made to suffer. We know that this is not supposed to be true, 
for investigators have not as a rule gone back to the days of 
the wanton neglect of the opportunities of life to find the cause 
of poverty and ill-health. It is the spirit of these neglected 
opportunities that is contaminating, and that must not be given 
contact and association. 

Meanness in any form is degrading. Rise above it. Study to 
develop the nobler impulses of mind and heart. 


288 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TEN. 

Any reader of this treatise must, by this time, see that per¬ 
sonal magnetism is life in the midst of calmness; and action that 
moves out of repose. Let the essential—life—be lacking, and 
calmness becomes indifference, while repose becomes laziness. The 
magnetic men and women of the world have possessed great vital 
energies, great volumes of mental-life, soul-life, or animal elec¬ 
tricity, while yet they have held them in the stillness of perfect 
control so that they might be used at will. 

While it requires a giant volume containing many private les¬ 
sons for learning the art of controlling others, it is however true 
that the habit-culture of this treatise will develop in every per¬ 
son who adopts it as much magnetism as is obtainable by natural 
gift, and as much success in using it. The fact that there are 
many intricate arts employed in the use of this power should 
not discourage a person. The study of magnetism in human 
affairs is almost as limitless as life itself. A careful adoption 
of the suggestions of this treatise will bring ample reward; and 
progress will be most decisive. 

Some persons become so interested in the study of human mag¬ 
netism, especially after they have begun to develop and to use it, 
that they go on with their researches in book after book and system 
after system. There are no reliable works now for sale except those 
that have been originated under what is known all over the earth as 
the Shaftesbury system. It was the first, and its success has at¬ 
tracted scores of imitators, many of whom have taken the principles 
stated and the lessons taught, and garbled them until they lose 
their value besides being incomplete and incoherent. The only wise 
plan is to pursue the whole Shaftesbury plan as stated in the Guide 
to the Ralston Clan. This Guide can be had on application, and 
full information concerning these great systems will be sent to any 
member. 

The power of personal influence is so easily acquired that we feel 
it incumbent on us to warn all persons not to be deceived by elusive 
advertisements. It can be easily proved that the Shaftesbury sys¬ 
tem is the original one in this line and that it is the only reliable 
series of works now published on the practice of magnetism of all 
kinds. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 11 



We take no patients and no individual cases. We have 
no medical practice, and do not teach or prescribe medicine. 


RULE OF USE UNDER THE RENTAL SYSTEM. 

This Treatment is private. It is rented to the Inside Member 
to whom it is sent, and the title will not at any time pass from the 
Ralston Health Club. The member has no right to loan this mono¬ 
graph or to allow any person to copy all or any part of it, or to come 
into possession by any means of any part or the whole of the same. 
This rule does not forbid the nse of the Treatment by the member in 
behalf of any child or aged person who is actually in the member’s 
household; but all others must become Inside Members of the Ral¬ 
ston Health Club in order to be entitled to the help of this Treat¬ 
ment. To become such members will not cost anything, as may be 
seen by consulting the final pages of the book of Inside Member¬ 
ship, if the steps are taken as there directed. 

19 


(289) 





290 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 


THE GREAT RHEUMATISM CURE. 

Rheumatism can be cured. 

Rheumatism can be prevented. 

These two propositions form the basis of the present treatment. 

Rheumatism cannot be cured by medicines. 

Rheumatism cannot be cured by appliances of any kind, such as 
belts, electrical devices, pads, or any of the thousand and one 
methods that are advertised in the periodicals of the day. The 
testimonials that come from prominent people given in favor of 
the advertisers of nostrums and appliances are not honestly ob¬ 
tained ; and the less credence you place in them the sooner you will 
find a cure. 

No class of maladies has attracted our attention more than that 
which includes rheumatism. It has been our study for a quarter 
of a century, for the reason that it has been the most common of 
all distempers, and has defied the best medical skill. There are 
everywhere so many sufferers from rheumatism who fight on with¬ 
out hope, and who fly to new remedies only to be doomed to the 
usual disappointment, that we regarded it our highest duty to in¬ 
vestigate the subject with the determination to learn whether or 
not there was a cure. 

At the beginning of this year, 1905, we are masters of the situa¬ 
tion. Our present treatment is the result of years of growing suc¬ 
cess in effecting a complete cure. As one patient has just written 
us, “ My highest wish is that those who suffer would try the 
Ralston cure.” We have had a splendid treatment before the 
public for years, but this now issued is the most direct and effective 
ever offered. 


CAUSES OF RHEUMATISM. 

There are two primary causes of this malady: 

A. Errors in diet. 

B. Errors in habits of life. 

There are certain foods that are known to aggravate this disease 
and to bring on severe attacks when such food is indulged in too 
freely. Likewise, when we study the diet of people who have 
rheumatism we find that similar foods are abundant with them. 


RHEUMATISM. 


291 


and it fully establishes the fact that the cause is largely due to 
such errors. 

There are also certain combinations of food, which when taken 
separately are not injurious, that aggravate the disease and that 
are found in the dietary of those who are its victims. 

Then there are habits of life that tend to bring on attacks, or 
to originate the disease with those who are free from it. These 
alone do not set up rheumatism, but they conspire with a wrong 
diet to produce. 

Now these are the primary causes. But what is the particular 
condition that is known as rheumatic? 

Have you ever seen strings of rock candy? They are made by 
dropping cords into pails or buckets of water in which sugar has 
been dissolved to such an extent that the water cannot hold more 
In solution. Then evaporation is caused by exposure to heat 
and the sugar soon is accumulated in excess of what the water will 
hold in solution; and this excess forms on the strings or whatever 
else it will cling to. It is the nature of anything that is held in 
solution, when it becomes excessive, to take the shape of crystals. 
Salt does this as well as sugar and other things. 

Crystals of microscopic size form in the blood, and attach them¬ 
selves to fibres or any stringy substance. They form in about the 
same way as rock sugar, and also fasten themselves to similar 
threads. The strange part of it all is that they are made of sugars 
or carbons in some form. 

These tiny crystals have very sharp edges, and lodge in places 
where nerves are abundant or in joints where they can irritate 
the flesh and set up inflammation in the surrounding tissue. 

Here we have the story of the direct cause of rheumatism. Back 
of it are the primary causes of bad diet and wrong habits of life. 

Certain kinds of food contain the fibres that are so injurious, 
and certain other foods give rise to the acid. When the two meet 
they make the sharp, cutting, agonizing crystals that float in the 
blood and embed themselves in the sensitive nerves. 

Uric acid is the name of the sugar product out of which the 
crystals are formed. Uric acid may be free, or may exist in the 
shape of crystals. When free it sets up lithemia, insomnia, ver¬ 
tigo, tinnitus aurium, fulness of the head, and an irritable con¬ 
dition of the nervous system. When attached to the fibres that 
are present in the system, it takes on shape and the form of sedi- 


292 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 

ment, such as may often be seen in the urine; and the same com¬ 
bination of the acid and fibers into crystals which grow together 
into lumps, will cause gravel. So also calculi, or stones in the 
bladder, gall stones and other desposits are masses of the tiny 
crystals, so to speak. 

It is necessary to understand the nature of the process that re¬ 
sults in the presence of uric acid, in order to be able to combat 
successfully the disease of rheumatism, and we therefore offer the 
following explanation: 

The body is built anew, cell by cell, every day and hour and min¬ 
ute. But for every new cell that is built one breaks down and dies. 
Nature provides for this death by oxidizing the dead cell, which 
means that it is burned up in a chemical sense; a liquid fire 
through the action of oxygen by which the character of the dead 
cell is so changed that it can be passed out of the body in the form 
of urea. Urea, therefore,, is the complete change of the waste 
material. When it is in the form of urea it passes easily and 
quickly out of the body. 

But certain foods, under the influence of certain bad habits of 
life, interfere with the process and the result is uric acid, which is 
partly made urea. What these foods are, and what these bad 
habits come from, we shall discuss in this treatment. In the 
meantime it is important that we note the results of this partial 
oxidizing of the dead material of the body, for the chemical burn¬ 
ing up is called oxidizing. 

The effect on the urine is the most noticeable, and the ordinary 
individual will have no difficulty in finding out what is going on 
in the system by examining the water that passes through the 
kidneys. Rheumatism, uric acid, urine albumen, gout, gall stones, 
calculi in the bladder, etc., are all due to the same general causes 
and hold a close relation to each other. And the urine shows the 
increase or decrease of the direct cause, uric acid. In health the 
urine possesses a light-amber color, and this changes to darker or 
lighter as some disease or disorder affects the blood. The coloring 
matter is due to a pigment, or paint-producing substance that is 
called urochrome by some and urian by others. 

There are several ways of detecting the presence of albumen 
in the urine. One of the most common is to apply heat and nitric 
acid to the urine, whereupon the albumen coagulates; and when 
this is seen under a microscope the moulds of the tubules of the 


RHEUMATISM. 


293 


kidney lining are plainly visible. This is a very dangerous symp¬ 
tom, as no human being can long survive the loss of that lining. 
Steps should be taken at once to heal it and to save what remains. 
The most frequent cause of albuminuria is alcohol, and generally 
in the form of adulterated beer, wine and liquor; but there are 
many other things that lead to the breaking down of the kidney 
lining, such as coffee, tea, impure foods and excess of meat. 

Temporary albuminuria is due to colds, congestion, and inflam¬ 
mation of the kidneys, which allow the albumen to come through 
from the blood. It also accompanies dyspepsia, heart and liver 
troubles, as well as pneumonia and lung diseases. There are cases 
where the urinary analysis, or urinalysis, as experts love to call it, 
has shown a healthy condition of the kidneys and normal excre¬ 
tions ; yet such a malady as pneumonia has developed Bright’s dis¬ 
ease very suddenly, and the same analysis has disclosed a destroyed 
kidney lining. “ The lungs are getting relief,” says a fond wife, 
as her husband shows signs of recovery from pneumonia; “ do you 
not think he will get well, doctor ? ” Then came the answer in the 
negative; the urine contains the destroyed fibers of the kidney- 
cover. Where albuminuria is due to mere congestion of the kid¬ 
neys, it will not continue after the inflammation passes away, if 
care is taken of the health. 

Dropsy is often caused by the insufficient action of the kidneys, 
which permits the albumen to pass out in the urine, while the 
bulk of the water seeks to remain in the system. 

Impaired vision is often an accompaniment of albuminuria, as 
the presence of uric acid in the blood causes a degeneracy or break¬ 
ing down of the retina. Great pains should be taken to effect a 
cure at once; and it is well to say that any normal diet and regime 
will restore the conditions of health. 

Urinary calculi are associated with uric acid, giving to that 
the name of lithic acid, because of the stone-like composition of the 
latter. To properly understand these subjects, they should all be 
read together. 

Lithic acid is the name sometimes given to uric acid, because 
of the stony deposits which are found in it. 

Urea is the name applied to the leading principle of urine; 
it being an organic matter and constituting one-third of all the 
solids in that excretion. It is not uric acid, though commonly 
confounded with it. The office of urea is a very important one; 


294 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 


and is founded upon the fact that the act of living consists in the 
burning up of the body to produce muscular, nervous and mental 
force. This destruction must be met by two processes; one gets 
rid of the burnt-up tissue, and the other supplies more nutrition 
to rebuild what is lost. The burning is caused by carbon and 
oxygen, and the tissues of nitrogenous matter are then called 
oxidized nitrogen. The average adult must get rid of over an 
ounce a day, and the urea carries it away. It is found in the urine, 
not because it is produced by the kidneys, but because the latter 
separate it from the blood. It is also present in perspiration, in 
the lymph and chyle, in the vitreous humor of the eye, and gen¬ 
erally throughout the blood. 

Of all the afflictions which can come upon the human system 
that of uric acid may be called the worst. In healthy urine it con¬ 
stitutes slightly less than one per cent, of the solids; .its propor¬ 
tion being 0.86 of the whole; while in insects, serpents and unclean 
animal life it is found in very large proportion. It indicates a 
condition so closely allied to that which accompanies rheumatism 
that it is inseparable from that malady in the study of causes. 

Uric acid, when present in the urine in a quantity exceeding 
one per cent, of the solids, indicates the tendency to such horrible 
maladies as rheumatism, gout, albuminuria, dropsy, Bright’s dis¬ 
ease and others; but it is in the blood that the real damage is 
wrought. When secreted in excess it is discharged by the kidneys, 
and appears in the urine as red gravel, or else accumulates in the 
bladder as stones or calculi. Usually a clot of blood or some par¬ 
ticle of foreign matter is found in the center, showing that the 
uric acid uses it as a basis for accumulating. 

To detect uric acid obtain a microscope and examine the urine 
after it has settled by standing a while; the acid appears in the 
form of rhomboid tablets, which are so-called because they are six¬ 
faced; and they are generally accompanied by crystals shaped like 
little dumb-bells. It is the solidity of this acid that leads to some 
of the disagreeable results that attend its presence in the blood. 
While the elements that compose the acid are always at hand, and 
constitute the chief parts of the body, the tendency to form the 
acid is due to an extremely abnormal and diseased condition of the 
blood; a condition for which the individual is to blame, as we 
shall see as we proceed. It is not an easy thing to induce the 
formation of uric acid in excess; it is impossible to do so when the 


RHEUMATISM. 


295 


diet and regime are sensible; and yet, when the acid crystals are 
once formed, it is just as hard to get rid of them, as their presence 
in the system causes an increase of the tendency that induces them. 
Such a deposit requires ten thousand times its own bulk of water 
to dissolve it, except when distilled water is used; and then the 
quantity is less and the action more rapid and satisfactory. 

Some persons are in that defective condition of the health 
which favors what is known as the “uric acid habit;” that is, the 
waste matter of the body does not break down completely and 
change into urea; but being but partly oxidized (burned) it is left 
in the state known as uric acid. 

The question whether food will turn into urea or into uric 
acid is determined altogether by the habits of life. That the whole 
battle hinges upon this one point may be regarded as settled, for 
it is to-day the opinion of all great specialists in these lines that 
the methods of eating, the foods selected and the habits of the day, 
control the continuance of this great source of ill. The uric acid 
tendency often exists a long time before it establishes disease, espe¬ 
cially if the constitutional health is first-class. But it sooner or 
later breaks out, and often with unexpectedness and fearful damage 
to the system. The strange fact is that dropsy, gout, kidney 
troubles, calculus, liver troubles, and every form of rheumatism 
may all be related to the presence of uric acid, although differing 
in themselves. Thus one man may find calculus or stone in the 
urinary ducts to be the shape of the disease that is assumed after 
uric acid begins to accumulate, while another man may turn to 
gout, a third to dropsy, a fourth to rheumatism, and so on. Yet 
the treatment that removes the tendency to the formation of uric 
acid cures the one disease as well as the others. 

No condition gives rise to so many afflictions as this. 

THE HABITS THAT CAUSE RHEUMATISM. 

The first of the bad habits that give rise to uric acid and hence 
to rheumatism is the suppressing of the urea. The urea is the 
complete burning up of the dead life in the body, that is living 
matter that has just died. As long as urea remains in the body 
when it should go out, it will prevent the formation of other urea 
until it is allowed to escape. Therefore it is the first duty of 
every person to get rid of all urea as fast as it is formed, or in the 
same daily quantity. 


296 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 

Holding in the sweat, or perspiration, prevents the urea from 
getting out, and results in the uric acid back of it. There are 
many ways of holding in the sweat. How often do you bathe? 
Once a week. It is a good old New England custom. How often 
does this laborer bathe. Once a year. A rheumatic person should 
have an active movement of the pores of the skin once a day. Yet 
few do this. 

An investigator found that the worst cases in the world were 
in Northern Germany and adjacent lands, where the people slept 
on and even under feather bedding, in sweat-boxes, allowing 
little escape of urea, and compelling the body to reabsorb over and 
over again the waste matter it had thrown off. “All men, women 
and children were victims of rheumatism and catarrh. I induced 
some to remove the loads of clothing, to heat their bedrooms at 
night, and to lie naked on plain hard beds, and these recovered.” 
Since then it is a fact that a complete revolution has begun in the 
treatment of this disease in that country. While it is true that 
acute attacks must be so treated as to keep out all cool air for 
awhile, it is likewise a fact that the “ air-treatment ” will do more 
good in the removal of urea and the dissolving of uric acid than 
any other known to-day. 

Wearing the same under-clothing too many days at a time is 
another bad habit. The urea becomes quite thick on the under¬ 
garments, even in one day, and the uric poisoning is sent back into 
the blood. People wonder why the men and women who are out of 
doors much, or who have plenty of air and exercise, are so often 
victims of rheumatism; but the answer is this: 

They do not bathe often enough. 

When they do bathe, they use methods that are not healthful, 
and should adopt the bath of high regime in the book of Inside 
Membership. 

They do not change their under-clothing often enough. Many 
wear the same garments a month, and none change oftener than 
once a week, while the victim of rheumatism needs a daily change. 
Many follow the old custom of using the upper sheet one week in 
bed, and then putting it in as the lower sheet for the next week, 
thus having two weeks of urea to associate with at night. 

The breath gives out the poisonous urea, and people sleep with 
it filling the room. This opens up the question of how to arrange 
the sleeping room at night. If you let in the damp air, it will 


RHEUMATISM. 


297 


chill you and lead to results just the opposite of what you seek. 
If you keep the windows closed, you will breathe your own breath, 
and that of your bedfellow, if any. This problem is by no means 
an easy one. Its only solution is to sleep alone and occupy as 
large a room as possible; one that has not had human breath in it 
during the day and that has been thoroughly aired up to the time 
of occupying it at night. Then keep the windows closed, if the 
night ^ir harms you, or open it a half inch if you can endure that 
much of the air. This, advice applies to a very limited number of 
cases, we are glad to say. Avoid inhaling urea. 

The custom of sleeping in a room where a vessel is uncovered 
under the bed or in the washstand is far more common than would 
be supposed. Many a case of uric acid has been traced to this 
habit. It is best to have no possibility of such danger; and some¬ 
times the covering of the vessel does not tit close enough to keep 
out the poison. Booms where children have left the odor during 
the day should never be employed for sleeping purposes. 

Most persons tax the vitality by eating the heaviest meal at 
night. It involves a large loss of strength to digest the dinner 
that is eaten late in the day. A “uric acid” person needs every 
ounce of strength he can get. Our advice is to eat heavily of the 
most wholesome things in the morning, and very lightly at night, 
with a good meal in between at noon. We do not believe a cure 
is possible with any person who cannot find an appetite in the 
morning because of taking the principal meal of the day at even¬ 
ing. Better starve at night to feed well in the morning. 

Later on in this treatise we shall refer more directly to this 
question of diet. 

Suddenly checking the perspiration is very dangerous. It is 
so for the reason that it turns back the urea that has started to 
come out and that has got as far as the skin. Perspiration is one 
of the blessings of health, for it throws off the locked up poisons 
in the body, dealing with a class that the bowels and the kidneys 
will not affect. Hence the skin must do its full part in maintain¬ 
ing health. To start its pores into openness and then to close 
them while they are in the midst of their best work is like in¬ 
jecting a flood of poisons into the blood through countless thou¬ 
sands of pores. This is the injury done by cooling off when you 
are over-heated. Do not go to an open window or get in a draft 
when you are perspiring. 


298 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 

Loss of sleep lowers the vitality and takes away the power of 
the system to throw off the poisons that are always being made by 
the process of nature. Nine hours of sleep, or at least that amount 
of time in bed or on a couch, are needed. If you cannot sleep, try 
the treatment for that malady, which accords with this method of 
cure. Best is required not only at night but during the day, 
until the vitality is restored. 

Hard work and strong exercise do much injury to the parts that 
are affected by rheumatism. Passive exercise is curative, but 
affirmative action is hurtful. This will be explained on a later 
page of this treatise. But hard work prevents a cure; and for 
this reason so many laborers fail to get relief. 

The medicine habit is one of the worst. No medicine should 
ever be taken for rheumatism, no matter who orders it, or on 
what avalanche of testimonials in the papers the drugs are held up 
as curatives. 

We now come to 

THINGS TO BE AVOIDED. 

ALCOHOL.—This is a perverted form of sugar or carbon. Al¬ 
cohol can be made of any carbon, such as sugar, starch, etc., and 
these enter largely into the system when in health. It is their 
excess and their perverted form that do the damage. A rheumatic 
person makes alcohol in the blood by the wrong action of the sys¬ 
tem; and to aggravate this condition by drinking spirituous 
liquors adds to the perversion, and always makes a cure more 
difficult. The best authorities declare that there is no cure for 
rheumatism under such conditions. 

It makes no difference how small the quantity of alcohol in the 
bulk of liquid, its presence and the combinations that surround it 
are foes to a cure. Avoid beer, wine, cider and all the weaker 
and the stronger drinks. 

CHABGED WATEBS.—Any water that is charged with gas is 
a cause of uric acid; for urea and carbon-dioxide are allied; and 
the only agency of charging waters or drinks, or soda fountain 
products is by the use of carbon-dioxide. This is also the product 
of baking powders. It is one of the worst enemies of the victim 
of rheumatism. 

FANCY DBINKS.—These are the many tempting temperate 
drinks that are free from alcohol. Billions of glasses are drank 


RHEUMATISM. 


299 


every year. They are made of poisons that are hurtful, and no 
person can hope to get well who puts into the system any such 
thing. 

TEA and much COFFEE.—All tea is exceedingly hurtful; and 
more than one cup of coffee daily is injurious, and it should be 
weak at that. The proper way to use coffee is in the manner stated 
in high regime in your book of Inside Membership. But tea in 
every form must be avoided, as you would avoid your enemy. 

ACID FRUITS.—These are also in line with the causes of 
rheumatism. A very strong acid in a fruit is generally an indica¬ 
tion that it is unripe; but fruit that is acid when fully ripe, like 
the lemon and lime, is useful in the cure of rheumatism. The 
use of sugar changes the nature of the lime and lemon, and it 
then becomes one of the causes of uric acid. Lemon juice alone 
or without sugar in any mixture that is wholesome will prove 
helpful in the cure of this malady. All fruits that require sugar 
or sweetening in order to make them palatable are causes of the 
disease. Avoid them. 

ACIDS and SWEETS.—This combination is the most prolific 
cause of rheumatism in the whole category of errors. If you give 
apple sauce that has been made of sour apples made sweet by 
sugars or syrups to any person who is disposed to rheumatism, 
its severity will be noticed at once. If this combination of sour 
fruit and sugar or syrup is given to a person who is not prone to 
the malady, it will in time cause it. Next to apple sauce is 
cranberry sauce, as a common cause of rheumatism. These twin 
errors of diet have made millions of victims of this disease. The 
rule is a plain one: never eat fruit that you must sweeten to 
make palatable. 

STRAWBERRIES, TOMATOES and watermelon are specially 
hurtful, and cause the malady as well as increase it. We have met 
a large number of cases of rheumatism that came during and im¬ 
mediately following the strawberry season, and in persons who at 
other times are free from the pains; but each year adds to their 
severity until at length the malady is firmly established. 

SUGARS and SWEETS of all kinds turn to uric acid in the 
body on the principle first stated and after the manner of the 
rock sugar forming on strings. While the body needs some sugar 
and must have some carbon, the excess of this article becomes 
a dangerous presence in the blood. It turns to various forms of 


ferment, notably alcoholic, and is such an incumbrance that its 
exit is absolutely necessary. The craving for sweets is abnormal 
in most persons; while some do not care for sugar or candies, 
yet make up for the lack by eating starchy foods to excess, or by 
taking alcohol. 

It will be noticed that men who dislike candies are inclined to 
excesses in the use of alcohol; and that those who eat much bread 
and crave potatoes do not have use for sugars and confectionery. 
Carbon in some form is the demand of the body. As alcohol it 
is abnormal and an enemy; and in the almost pure carbon form of 
sugars and candies it is likewise hurtful. The rule for eating 
sweets is well stated in the book of Inside Membership and need 
not be restated, as that book is always announced as the basis of 
all our Special Treatments. Hence we refer to it whenever neces¬ 
sary. 

Whenever there is excess of sugars or sweets in the system, the 
kidneys are made to suffer, for the liver refuses to act upon such 
excess, and what is discarded by the liver is always a dangerous 
tax upon the kidneys. The liver is the most sensitive organ in the 
system; in it are located what some persons have facetiously called 
the “ strike germs/’ which give rise to the so-called desire to go 
on a strike. While such theory is unfounded it is nevertheless 
true that the liver does go on a strike on many occasions, some of 
which are as follows: 

1. When the stomach is crowded with heavy food, such as a solid 
meal, or a feast or banquet. The late Postmaster-General Payne 
said that his breakdown in vitality was due to being invited out 
to dinners. In this age of civilization the highest idea of enter¬ 
taining friends is to feed them, just as we feed animals when we 
wish to please them. The liver is certainly justified in going 
on a strike. 

2. When there is an excess of alcohol in the system. The rule 
is this: If uric acid is abundant the breath will give out the 
odor of alcohol, but, otherwise, it is possible to drink a small 
amount of this spirit and have it absorbed by the blood so com¬ 
pletely that not the slightest odor remains on the breath. If there 
is any odor it signifies the presence of a hurtful enemy. 

3. When sugars and sweets are taken in excess. Here the liver 
will go on a decided strike and send the half made poison down to 
the kidneys. 


RHEUMATISM. 


301 


Sir Henry Thompson, whose experience in the study and practice 
of dealing with every phase of rheumatism makes him one of the 
foremost authorities, says: “ Sugar in all its forms, at every 

meal, and wherever met with, forbid it altogether.” At Carls¬ 
bad, where thousands go for a cure of rheumatism, the diet is made 
a much more important item than the waters, although there is 
no doubt that sulphur is helpful to a slight extent; and at this 
famous place they require each patient to avoid sugar and sweets 
and sweetened cookery, as well as meat fats. There is some 
question as to the wisdom of the latter, as we shall now see in 
the next paragraph. 

MEAT TISSUE is to be avoided. This has led to the disuse 
of the fats of meats, which is a mistake. Fats free from the fiber 
are good, provided they are not used to excess. Again the liver 
goes on strike. The use of olive oil is one of the best things in 
the diet, but the liver will not digest or act upon very much of it; 
and when taken in excess the face gets yellow and the blood bilious, 
which makes the patient think that olive oil is not good at all. 
Cod liver oil is advised for rheumatism, yet it is no better than 
the fat of a piece of bacon fried. But the tissue of bacon is in¬ 
digestible, and the crisp fat is likewise very injurious. For these 
latter reasons we have pronounced it bad; yet, if some Balstonites 
do not think that we contradict ourselves, we would like to say that 
we have recommended bacon, not crisp, and not eaten with the 
tissue or fiber, in many private instances with the highest success 
in place of cod liver oil; and some of our books recommend it in 
this form, while others say let it alone altogether. There is no 
contradiction. The principle remains the same. 

All fiber, whether of meat, lean or in the fat cells, or in vege¬ 
tables, furnishes the indigestible strings on which the crystals of 
uric acid cling. 

FIBBOUS VEGETABLES.—These must be avoided by peo¬ 
ple who have uric acid tendencies, and by all who are rheumatic. 
Herein we are doing humanity a service by the results of many 
thousands of experiments in one study of this disease. It is 
often a cause of wonder why so many people who live in the 
country are rheumatic; but they eat coarse vegetables and indulge 
in sour fruits sweetened, and take cider or other drinks that in¬ 
crease the acidity; and the reason why they are rheumatic is at 
once seen and understood. What are these fibrous vegetables? 


302 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 

They are such stringy articles as carrots, turnips, parsnips, old 
beans, old pears, cabbages, and almost all kinds that ripen their 
covers or cell structures. The little parts that are called strings 
are indigestible forms of wood that the system grinds up and takes 
into the blood in sufficient quantity to assist in the formation of 
the uric acid crystals; and their presence makes it possible to 
accumulate stones and the various calculi that do so much damage. 

The difference between the soluble or digestible vegetable and 
the hurtful kind may be seen by noting the ease with which young, 
tender, stringless green beans will digest, while those that are old 
enough to make strings or tough covers will not pass through 
the system without some injury, however slight. Then, when the 
beans have ripened, each bean in encased in a shell or husk of its 
own that is totally indigestible. All ripe or dried beans have this 
shell. Under the microscope it is tough and woody to the eye. 
Therefore all baked beans and other kinds of this vegetable should 
be so cooked as to prevent the fibrous parts from entering the 
stomach. The same is true of every stringy food. 

They also contain insoluble mineral matter. 

Do not make the mistake of supposing that cooking will change 
the nature of the fiber. It does alter the value of the contents, 
for thorough cooking is an advantage under such conditions; but 
no amount of cooking will make the fibrous parts digestible. It 
may soften them to a pulp of silky fineness; yet the microscope 
shows that they are still fibers; and the finer they are the more 
dangerous they become, for the uric acid crystals will not form on 
the larger pieces. The stomach tears them into small bits, and 
these go into the blood and all through the body. 

Beets are not fibrous, and do not produce injury in this way. 

Celery should be chewed and the juices swallowed, but not the 
tough or stringy parts. 

Lettuce has almost no fibrous structure and is therefore good. 

Greens, such as dandelions, spinach, beet tops, etc., may be 
eaten, unless they are too old. 

Lima beans may be eaten provided the husk is not swallowed. 
This is generally so distinct that it may be detected in the mouth, 
and should be ejected. The question of good manners need not 
be involved, for any refined person can manage such things with¬ 
out attracting notice, just as if a small bone of fish were to be 
removed from the mouth. 


RHEUMATISM. 


303 


Split peas are now prepared and for sale in bulk in such condi¬ 
tion as to avoid the presence of the tough husk; while the whole 
peas will set up the most distressing case of rheumatic pains. 

Asparagus is helpful in this malady, if no fiber is swallowed. 

Tomatoes must at all times be avoided; as their oxalic acid 
works the same sort of injury as uric acid. There is no one kind 
of vegetable that is responsible for so much rheumatism as the 
tomato. 

Cranberries probably hold next place to the tomato in caus¬ 
ing rheumatism, although apple sauce made of sweetened sour 
apples has done its share. To cook a sour thing till it is mellow 
and then sweeten it is self-deception in the highest degree. When 
nature mellows the fruit, she bursts open the tiny microscopic 
cells; when cooking mellows it, these cells never open, but are 
separated and make a mushy mass that seems soft and buttery. 
The unopened fruit cell is a danger to the health. This applies 
to all fruits, and explains why death follows the eating of them, 
when eaten under-ripe, or not thoroughly mellowed by nature. 

You now see the whole fabric on which the disease of rheuma¬ 
tism is based. It consists of the double cause; uric acid from 
sweets and fruits, and dangerous combinations of food; and the 
fibrous bits of other food that are eaten. Here you have the 
crystals, just as you get them in the making of rock candy from 
sweetened water and strings. Every test and experiment will 
bear out this law of double cause. 

SPICES and all other things that contain woody fiber must be 
avoided. 

Stop using such articles as black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, all¬ 
spice, cloves and similar things, which are prolific causes of rheu¬ 
matism. 

Red pepper water may be taken, but not the pepper itself. 

Above all things never allow nutmeg to enter the stomach. 
Many of the stones and crystal forms in the body have been found 
formed on tiny microscopic bits of nutmeg. 

All crisp meat, and articles where grease has been dried hard, 
as well as all re-cooked meats, are hurtful. 

CHOCOLATE and cocoa in every form are specially harmful 
in this malady. 

In addition to the foregoing list of articles that must be avoided, 
read the twenty-first chapter of the 93d edition book of Inside 


304 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 

Membership, which you necessarily possess; and if there are any 
other forbidden things there avoid them also. In other words, 
you must not use any of the things that are forbidden in that 
chapter, and you must avoid all the articles that are stated in this 
treatise in the pages just preceding. 

THE NEGATIVE CURE. 

Having gone thus far let us sum up what is in the fact of the 
negative side of the cure. It of itself brings about relief and res¬ 
toration to health in a majority of cases; for rheumatism wdll 
cure itself when the causes are removed, unless too much of the 
old uric acid remains in the system. What we have said, and a 
few other general remarks that apply to the negative side of the 
cure, we will sum up as follows: 

1st Step.—Cease admitting forbidden matter into the system, as 
previously stated. 

2d Step.—Never suddenly check the perspiration. The urea 
in the blood must come out through the pores of the skin, in a 
large part at least. It is a common custom, when the body is 
heated and the perspiration flows freely, to get cooled off as soon 
as possible by sitting in a draft or seeking a chilling atmosphere. 
This closing of the pores produces a kind of paralysis that is 
dangerous, and leads to a future inaction that will not allow the 
urea to escape so easily. It is also a fruitful cause of skin disease 
and bad health. 

3d Step.—Avoid mineral water, soda waters, ginger ale, and 
all curative waters. Pure water is best; that direct from the 
springs in the country, if not hard, should be preferred. Next to 
this comes distilled water that has been thoroughly aerated or 
mixed with pure air. 

4th Step.—The copious use of pure spring water, or aerated 
distilled water, will open the pores of the skin, and do much toward 
getting the uric acid out of the blood. So hard is it to dissolve 
that it requires ten thousand times its own bulk to absorb it; and as 
the use of foreign matter daily leads to a greater proportionate 
quantity than the amount of water drank can take care of, it is 
easily seen why the disease does not readily yield to treatment. 

5th Step.—Avoid low temperatures, keep overwarm rather than 
chilled, and never allow the discomforts of heat to lead you to 
seek a draft or sudden coldness, 


RHEUMATISM. 


305 


6th Step.—Get ribbed silk underwear of the thinnest kind 
and wear next to the skin, changing it every morning. In cold 
weather wear very thin woolen underwear over the silk, and change 
the woolen garments twice a week. This may involve some ex- 
pense in getting the outfit; but once obtained, it will last a long 
time. The cost is much less than a week of doctoring. The silk is 
an excellent non-conductor of human electricity, serving to hold 
the vitality of the body in the system. The silk system has of 
itself cured rheumatism, where strictly followed according to 
these rules. It has not proved sufficient in some cases, and should 
not be exclusively depended upon. Of course, the skin must be 
kept clean and the pores open, if the silk is to be used. 

7th Step.—The usual method of bathing must be abandoned. 
To open the pores by hot w r ater is not advisable, for the water 
carries off great quantities of magnetism and vitality. In rheuma¬ 
tism the skin should be made hard, firm, solid and very active. 
This is best accomplished by chafing and exciting it, without injur¬ 
ing it. Water should not be used, except to remove dirt. The 
hips, legs and feet may receive a daily bath of tepid or warm water 
and soap; thoroughly rinsed and quickly wiped dry, then chafed 
with the hands, and patted hard to invigorate the skin. The latter, 
in a few days, will respond to the treatment and show increased 
health. But the waist, abdomen and chest should not be bathed 
if they can be kept clean by rubbing and patting, then wiping till 
warm, in a room of high temperature. The daily change of the 
silk serves to remove both the dirt and the urea. Examination will 
show that the latter is present on the silk in considerable quantity. 

8th Step.—Do not breathe your own breath, nor the breath 
of others; it prevents the escape of urea, keeps the blood impure 
and tends to the formation of uric acid. You can detect the carbon 
dioxide by coming into a room where it is, if you have been out in 
the pure air. This opens up the question of how to arrange the 
sleeping room at night. If you let in the damp air, it will chill 
you and lead to results just the opposite of what you seek. If you 
keep the windows closed, you will breathe your own breath and 
that of your bedfellow, if any. This problem is by no means an 
easy one. Its only solution is to sleep alone and occupy as large a 
room as possible—one that has not had human breath in it during 
the day, and that has been thoroughly aired up to the time of 
occupying it at night. Then keep the windows closed, if the 
20 


306 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 

night air harms you, or open it a half inch if you can endure that 
much of the air. This advice applies to a very limited number of 
cases, we are glad to say. 

9th Step.—Avoid inhaling urea. The custom of sleeping in 
a room where a vessel is uncovered under the bed or in the wash- 
stand is far more common than would be supposed. Many a case 
of rheumatism has been traced to this habit. It is best to have no 
possibility of such danger; and sometimes the covering of the vessel 
does not fit close enough to keep out the poison. Rooms where 
children have left the odor during the day should never be em¬ 
ployed for sleeping purposes. 

10th Step.—Do not tax the vitality by eating the heaviest 
meal at night. It involves a large loss of strength to digest the 
dinner that is eaten late in the day. A rheumatic person needs 
every ounce of strength he can get. Our advice is to eat heavily 
of the most wholesome things in the morning, and very lightly at 
night, with a good meal in between at noon. We do not believe a 
cure is possible with any person who cannot find an appetite in the 
morning because of taking the principal meal of the day at evening. 
Better starve at night to feed well in the morning. 

11th Step.—Avoid acid fruits. These are very likely to cause 
neuralgia as well as rheumatism. They do an incalculable injury 
to the blood. The whole fruit question is settled in the Inside 
Membership Book. 

12th Step.—To produce urea is a part of the plan of life, but 
to produce uric acid is unnatural and contrary to the purpose of 
living. The greatest step of all is this: to prevent the formation 
of uric acid by compelling the production of urea; and when this 
is done, all fear of rheumatism may be considered as vanquished. 
The whole battle for a cure must come down to this one point: 
the formation of urea and the prevention of uric acid. 

We place all the stress upon the twelfth step, yet we have pur¬ 
posely had much to say that may seem preliminary or introductory. 
Not so. The question whether food will turn into urea or into 
uric acid is determined altogether by the habits of life. That the 
whole battle hinges upon this one point may be regarded as set¬ 
tled, for it is to-day the opinion of all great specialists that rheu¬ 
matism in every form is due to the presence of uric acid in the 
blood. Says a physician, who has had as many cases as any prac¬ 
titioner that ever lived: “ Whatever may be the variety of rheu- 


RHEUMATISM. 307 

matism, we are forced to concede that there is one universal cause, 
uric acid.” Another says: “A few years ago we were not agreed 
as to the cause of rheumatism; but now there seems no doubt 
that its immediate cause is the presence of uric acid in the sys¬ 
tem.” The strange fact is that dropsy, gout, kidney troubles, cal¬ 
culus, liver troubles, and every form of rheumatism ma} r all be re¬ 
lated to the presence of uric acid, although differing in themselves. 
Thus one man may find calculus or stone in the urinary ducts to 
be the shape of the disease that is assumed after uric acid begins 
to accumulate, while another man may turn to gout, a third to 
dropsy, a fourth to rheumatism, and so on. Yet the treatment 
that removes the tendency to the formation of uric acid cures the 
one disease as well as the others. 

Our plan now is to directly attack the presence of uric acid in 
the blood, get it out, and at the same time stop its coming in. It 
is true that if it can be totally prevented from coming in, what has 
already accumulated will eventually disappear; but this may be a 
long process, so we will work the two together. Urea is the result 
of living, of the use of the material of the blood and flesh. It 
must be made in order that you may think, feel, act or even carry 
on the functions of the body. There are two kinds of waste al¬ 
ways forming in the body, and always ready to cause trouble if 
they are not disposed of as soon as possible after being formed. 
One is the waste from the food you eat; this goes out by the in¬ 
testines. From the food eaten certain nutrition is produced and 
makes blood. This circulates all through the body in every part, 
however small, and supplies the system as it changes from food 
to flesh, etc.; then breaks down in the very act of living, for life 
is change, and change is the passing of blood to flesh and flesh 
to waste. Food-waste is the effete matter of the intestines, and its 
exit is a very simple process compared with flesh-waste. All 
blood first makes flesh, and this dies in itself every moment, 
leaving as its kind of waste what is known as area, when the 
change is complete. When there is a fault somewhere in the 
action of the system, uric acid is sure to be the result, and its 
presence is due to one or more of several facts. 

Let these be carefully considered. 

1. When the system is charged with urea that is not thrown 
off as fast as nature intends, the blood-waste and flesh-waste will 
be incomplete, and uric acid will be formed instead of urea. 


308 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 

2. When foreign matter is in the system, as already stated, it 
cannot make urea, for it is not properly a part of the organic life 
of the body; and the result is uric acid. Read carefully all that 
has been said in this treatise thus far, especially relating to foreign 
matter in food and drink. 

3. When proper food is partly consumed in the life-action of 
the body, it does not reach the stage known as urea, but becomes 
uric acid. This is called incomplete or imperfect oxidation of 
waste matter. Oxidation is another term for changing, burning 
up or turning broken-down flesh into urea; and to this is charge¬ 
able by scientists of “ the desposit in the joints, muscle struc¬ 
ture and tissues of the body, of certain products of imperfect 
solubility,” which means that acids that cannot be dissolved and 
passed off are left to swell, inflame and torment muscles, nerves 
and joints. This is rheumatism. 

In getting rid of the causes that invite the formation of uric 
acid, we must depend solely on two processes, the first of which is 
the right way of living, and this has been amply stated in the 
entire scope of this treatise. The second is to act under the 
phase just stated. 

THE AFFIRMATIVE CURE. 

Rheumatism is acute and chronic. It is local and general. 

An acute attack should be treated in the following manner: 

One of the best treatments of late origin, and the most recent 
next to that which- we will state later on in this treatise, is the 
following: Place a cloth wet in very hot water on the painful 
part, repeat three times as it cools, then apply ice-cold camphorated 
lard oil on a cloth and wrap around the part for a half hour. 
After this knead the parts by the knuckles or the joints of the 
fingers, half rolling them forward and back on the part. 

When the pain is severe and local, as it generally is, let the 
patient go to bed between sheets, with a blanket above the upper 
sheet and another blanket below the lower sheet. This plan serves 
to absorb the perspiration better than any other, and is adopted in 
hospitals. Wrap all the parts that give pain in absorbent cotton 
wool, using as much as can be kept in place. The readiness with 
which this relieves acute pain is remarkable. In persons whose 
blood is scrofulous from inheritance, following certain foul diseases 
of ancestors, the cotton may fail to give relief, and the “blister 


RHEUMATISM. 


809 


treatment ” of Dr. Herbert Davies is to be used. Dr. Davies con¬ 
tended that rheumatism was caused by uric poisoning in the blood, 
which collected at the joints, and he succeeded in curing patients 
by blisters made of cantharides. Strips of cantharides plaster are 
placed at the affected joints when inflammation is at its height, 
and after serum or “ matter ” is gathered by the blisters it is 
drained off and thus got out of the blood. 

The latest treatment is that of airing the skin. We have already 
referred to it. It consists first in airing a large room and being 
sure of getting fresh air in it; then making sure that it is free from 
dust. Admit heat until the temperature rises to 92 degrees, and do 
not allow this to drop. The patient enters the room, undresses 
completely, and spends from one to three hours thus, sitting, re¬ 
clining, walking, exercising or otherwise employing the time, taking 
the dry bath and flesh-balling at the beginning and at the end of the 
stay. This involves every valuable principle of the Turkish bath 
without the dangers and exhaustion of that method. As the urea is 
passed out of the body faster by the u air treatment than any 
other, it allows the uric acid to dissolve into urea. 

Add to this method the full use of the lungs by deep respirations, 
inward and outward, with long continued trials of the exercise, and 
you have a very valuable aid to the foregoing treatment. 

Then the kidneys must be made active. We have watched the 
results of waters, drugs and medicines of all kinds, and feel satisfied 
that a pint of distilled water on arising, preceded by a pmt of cold 
milk taken in bed by sips, allowing a half hour for the milk alone, 
and a pint of distilled water an hour before the, noon meal, another 
pint before the evening meal, and a pint of milk taken by sips for 
a half hour after going to bed, will give the kidneys a full yet 
natural action. The milk is healing to the kidneys. 

There has been considerable discussion as to which is better to 
take, milk or beef juice; and the verdict seems to be unanimous in 
favor of milk. The many tests that have been made show that beef 
juice is not beneficial, and we think it is because of the small fibers 
that float in it. A clear beef bouillon might be serviceable if it 
could be had in a pure state. But milk is decidedly helpful. A cup 
of very hot milk taken at night after going to bed, and sipped very 
slowly so that it will not reach the stomach, but be digested in the 
glands of the mouth and throat, will induce sleep and bring a high 
state of vitality. 


310 SPECIAL ^REaLMEnT NUMBER ELEVEN. 


































rheumatism. 


.311 


The worst kind of meat fiber is in salted or dried meats, and in 
smoked meats, including fish and every animal product that is 
treated in such way. They are sometimes cooked and highly sea¬ 
soned to conceal their taste, and do great harm. For this reason all 
strange soups are to be avoided. 

FLESH-BALLING. 

The most successful results have been secured by the practice of 
flesh-balling. On another page there are several cuts, Figures 1 
to 8, showing how this is done. 

The principle of flesh-balling may be stated as follows: 

Massage used to be employed with varying success, and is still 
advocated by many physicians; probably nine-tenths of all practi¬ 
tioners advising it for the relief of local pains. 

While some kinds of massage are still good, the best of them do 
not reach the inward tissue of the flesh where so much uric acid is 
locked up. Then the rollers were advocated in the attempt to set 
up greater activity within the masses of flesh, but the objection to 
the rollers is that they cover too much Width of space. They are 
much better than massage. 

This defect in the roller method was entirely overcome when the. 
balls were introduced. The ball rolls over a very small area of 
space and has great depth of efficacy. The results are surprising in 
every case of local pain or swelling. 

HOW TO USE THE FLESH BALLS. 

Ho not spend money idly; but get any small wooden balls of the 
diameter of an inch or near that size. If you cannot get wooden 
ones, then use the large clay marbles, or the glass agates, which 
are on sale at every toy shop. They cost but a cent or two. 

Wash the local parts with hot water, then dash with cold water 
as near to the temperature of ice as you can procure it; then chafe 
the skin lightly with a very hot towel. The balls now may be used. 
They should be rolled over the affected parts in the various ways 
indicated by the pictures on the page of illustrations. 

Figure 1 shows the action of rolling the ball forward and back. 
Let this be repeated for half a minute, pressing as hard as can be 
borne without causing pain by so doing. 

Figure 2 shows the side action of the ball. It does not differ 
in effect from that of the first movement except that it reaches por- 


m special treatment number eleven. 


tions of the parts that may not be thoroughly rolled by the former 
action. Eepeat it for half a minute. 

Figure 3 produces a different phase of the rolling, as it gives h 
circular movement to the mass of flesh, and affects the cells and 
tissue in a more powerful manner than either of the straight move¬ 
ments. Eepeat for half a minute. 

Figure 4 is the reverse of Figure 3. Eepeat the same length of 
time. 

Figure 5 is the double-hand action, employing both hands in the 
motion, thus producing greater warmth to the tissue beneath, and 
calling a larger flow of blood through the flesh. It is a very in¬ 
vigorating, passive exercise. The motion is like that of Figure 1. 

Figure 6 is the lateral or side action made with both hands. 

Figure 7 is the double-hand rolling. 

Figure 8 is the same reversed. Eepeat each of these for half a 
minute, making four minutes for the whole series. While they are 
all based on the same principle, each action has some special value 
that requires its use. 

The next movements in passive exercise are those of the edge- 
hand series. There are eight of them, including the figures from 9 
to 16. 

The distinction between active and passive exercise must be kept 
in mind at all times. If you have rheumatism in the leg and walk 
much or stand much so as to tax the muscles, it irritates the condi¬ 
tion. It is what is called active exercise. All active exercise is 
hurtful to the parts affected with this malady. But none at all is 
fully as bad. Eest is needed to save the vitality and to avoid strain¬ 
ing and otherwise irritating the localities where the suffering occurs; 
hut, on the other hand, it is highly important to keep the functions 
of the body from becoming weak. 

The skin is like a great wall through which sewers in countless 
thousands are running and carrying off the dead matter; thus aid¬ 
ing in relieving the body of much of its excess of uric acid, For this 
reason the more water, such as the distilled, that you drink, the 
better it will be for you. The kidneys will carry off more of the 
poisons and the skin will do its extra parts also. 

Each one of the pores of the skin is a deep channel, and looks 
very deep when viewed under the microscope. In its passages there 
are constant movements, like those of the bowels, but on a much 
smaller scale. They carry off poisons. If they become stagnant, the 


RHEUMATISM. 313 





EDqE MOVEMENTS 









































314 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 

poisons will remain in the blood and there result in the uric acid 
crystals. 

It is possible to increase the activity of the skin. The most suc¬ 
cessful way is by the edge-hand movements, as the blood is called 
into the mass directly under the skin and there builds stronger and 
more energetic passages to the outside. 

Figure 9 shows the first of these movements. The hand is made 
to strike the flesh over the affected parts by the edge of the hand 
coming down with great rapidity on the flesh. This jars the mass 
within and causes a series of quick compressions and rebounds of 
the flesh which produce the most invigorating results. They should 
be repeated for a full half minute, and as much longer as may be 
endured. 

Figure 10 shows the double action in the same way, both hands 
doing the work. This brings great blood heat to the parts and 
affords relief to the locality where pain is present. 

Figure 11 is a variation of the double-hand action, made by the 
fingers of each hand pointing in opposite directions. 

Figure 12 is still more important, for it represents the slanting 
blow. This is done by tipping the hand so that the edge will strike 
slantwise and not directly on the part of the body. 

Figure 13 is the double hand slanted. 

Figure 14 shows the same as 13 except that the position of Figure 
11 is assumed. 

The movement shown in Figure 15 is still more important, as it 
raises masses of the flesh by the opposing slants of both hands, with 
the blow struck as though the hands were to approach each other. 

Figure 16 represents the hand that is flat pushing a mass of flesh 
toward the other hand, and the latter striking it with an edge-like 
blow. This is clearly seen to be the most effecting of all the special 
massage movements. There are no passive exercises that equal 
these. They are all decided improvements on the usual methods of 
massage. We have had them tested for many years, and the cures 
reported have been many and permanent, provided there is no 
renewal of the errors that first caused the rheumatism. It is as 
easy for a cured person to get sick by carelessness as for a well per¬ 
son to do so. 

The next series of passive exercise-movements are classed under 
the name of the DRY BATH. They are supposed to take the place 
of the water bath. The best of all methods of using the dry bath 


RHEUMATISM. 


315 




FIG .17 


Fig/? 




FIG 30 



F' G Xl 


the: 


□ B V BATH 
































































































































316 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 


is to get in a room where the temperature is 92 degrees, and does not 
get lower. Of course there must be no draft or open door. Shut 
yourself up in the room and disrobe, leaving no clothing on the 
body. Take a coarse bathing towel and rub the body by the see-saw 
action of the two hands, as shown in the figures 17 to 22. 

Your own activity is valuable in order to cause the skin to give 
out its moisture as you rub it. The harder you work the more 
moisture will come out. If none of the perspiration is allowed to 
remain on the skin, but is rubbed off as it accumulates, there will be 
no danger of harm, for perspiration is cleansing and beneficial when 
it is freely moving. The towel should not be employed after five 
minutes; but should be succeeded by one that is only about half as 
coarse. Then, for another five minutes, the same process should be 
continued. Follow all the illustrations given in the figures 17 to 22. 

Study these very carefully. 

After this is done, take a very smooth and soft towel and gently 
pass it over the body, using all the directions indicated in the 
figures, and bring the work slowly to a close during this third period 
of five minutes. Dress quickly and let the fresh air in the room by 
small installments, so as to avoid passing into a cold temperature 
before ihe skin is sufficiently closed up. 

The final series of passive exercises are known as massage by the 
fingers. They are represented by figures 23 to 31. 

In Figure 23 the knuckles or backs of the joints are pushed into 
the flesh so as to raise it and strain on the under structure, thereby 
stimulating and exciting the flow of blood, and this brings extra 
nutrition there. 

In Figure 24 the same action is made more acute by the use of the 
tips of the fingers. Pressure may be increased to a great limit as 
the flesh becomes more and more pliable. 

In Figure 25 the action of picking up lumps of flesh is shown. 
This is intended to lift the masses of skin and the sub-structure and 
to reach out in many directions by the pulling movement. 

Figure 26 shows an entirely different action, for now the thumb 
starts some distance away and draws near to the tips of the fingers; 
and then backs away again. 

Figure 27 is also a representation of the same movement made 
double by the fingers and the thumb both approaching each other, 
which doubles the exercise given the flesh. 

In Figure 28 the idea is represented of the four fingers using the 


RHEUMATISM. 


317 














318 special Treatment number eleven. 

strength of the wrist as a foil or resisting wall against which much 
greater pressure can be made. 

Figure 29 shows a pulling away of the skin by a sliding move¬ 
ment of the fingers. The zone of action is very limited, but it is 
effective over a place where the skin is thin^ or over a bone. 

Figure 30 illustrates the poking-up action which is made by the 
two hands coming towards each other, then lifting up a bunch of 
flesh. 

In Figure 31 the wrist and fingers hold the mass of flesh together 
and shake it by very firm but small motions. 

The purpose of these movements is to build up greater activity of 
the skin and of the cell-structure under it. They reach far into the 
body. It is well known that the more freely the blood circulates, the 
better the functions of the skin and its adjacent tissue will do their 
work. In fact the pores can be developed into fully five times more 
effective service. On the other hand, if it is neglected, it becomes 
clammy and dull in its work, and its pores contract to a state of 
weakness that almost reaches the dormant condition. All the chan¬ 
nels exude the poisons that do so much harm, and the increase in 
their efficiency always brings the most beneficial results. 

In concluding this treatise, we wish to call attention to that su¬ 
preme law of health which tells us that habits and diet, good or bad, 
control every disease and every means of cure. 

If the directions seem too taxing on the attention, they may be 
regarded as only necessary when the case is most severe; and it is 
at such a time that the sufferer is willing to tax his attention and 
time in seeking relief. 

We advise the reading and constant re-reading of this whole treat¬ 
ment; for it will give you new ideas on each perusal. We know this 
to be true because there are contained in these pages the contents of 
what would make a very large volume if spread out with full details. 
But sick folks do not like to read much in order to find a cure. 
They wish the many facts boiled down into the smallest reading 
space. This makes it necessary to re-read the treatment many times. 
We promise that you will get some new ideas even if you peruse it 
a hundred times. 

Many little bits of advice may be added, and they seem to be al¬ 
most without limit; such as, for instance: 

The whole treatment may be reserved for those who suffer most; 
and those who suffer less may adopt that part of the method that is 


319 


RHEUMATISM. 

most convenient for them. But the main principles must not be 
forgotten, which tells us that the use of fibrous foods with sweets 
and indigestible articles, such as are forbidden in chapter twenty- 
one of the book of Inside Membership, will bring on the tendency 
to uric acid; and no person can be counted wise who permits such 
errors to come into his or her life. 

Another principle is this: Too much food must not be eaten at 
one meal. The reason is that the system must not have too much 
food to dispose of at one time. This has led to the rule that there 
ought to be six light meals each day—the heaviest in the morning 
and the lightest at night—if the best results are to be obtained in the 
cure of rheumatism. This principle is aj^alnable one. 

If the bowels are not free they shofild be made so by the following 
practice. Steep some flaxseed into a drink, such as has been used 
by all humanity for centuries<Known as flaxseed tea. Make it of 
the powdered seed. Into each cup of the tea squeeze the juice of 
half a lemon. Take a cup of this before each of the three main 
meals every day. If the bowels become too loose, take less of the 
tea. The effect of the lemon and the flaxseed is to relieve pain, 
drive off the tendency to catch colds and keep the system in order. 
Both parts of the tea will prove good food, rather than medicine. 
It should be taken ice cold, and sipped slowly. 

Rheumatism is one of the most common of maladies and per¬ 
haps the most difficult to overcome. Knowing the efficacy of this 
treatment and having certain proof of its ability to cure the dis¬ 
ease, we ask each person who uses it to do so with a determination 
to adopt its measures as far as the severity of the case may require; 
and, after success has been achieved, write to us the fact, and state 
the length of time that elapsed in obtaining a complete cure. 


WHY SOME PERSONS FAIL TO GET CURED. 

About one person in fifty reports that the treatment did some 
good, but that a cure has not been obtained. From the examination 
of such cases we find that the patient has wilfully neglected such 
parts of the treatment as were not inconvenient, and has not care¬ 
fully followed the most important instructions. For instance, only 
last week we learned of a case where the treatment failed in part. 



320 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 

and the patient was found to be in the habit of bolting all his meals 
without mastication and of drinking three glasses of the coldest ice 
water while eating, which he poured at the rate of a whole glass at a 
time into his stomach. Yet he expected medicines to cure him; and, 
failing in them, he expected nature to help him. This is only one 
illustration out of hundreds that might be quoted. 

Head the treatment. Then follow ALL its directions, and a cure 
is absolutely sure. When it fails it is due to the fault of the patient. 
This is true of all these treatments. 


General Information 

CONCERNING THE TREATMENTS THAT FOLLOW 
IN THIS BOOK. 


Beginning with Special Treatment Number 12, the plan changes 
materially. It will be recalled by reference to the last chapter of 
the book of Inside Membership, that we gave notice that no treat¬ 
ments would be published and sold singly except the first eleven. 
This led to the inquiry why we did not publish those that followed 
from number twelve to the end at number forty-four. These reasons 
we will state here. It is true that some of the most important of 
all the treatments are in the list that follows, and not in the first 
eleven. But the reasons to be stated will fully explain why they 
are not published singly: 

1. When a treatment is rented out for the price stated, its value 
is not dependent on its size. On the other hand, the more briefly 
the facts can be stated and the less time that is required in reading 
what to do, the better it will be for the patient. There are no long 
treatments in those that run from number twelve to number forty- 
four. Yet purchasers would not place a right estimate of value on 
them, as they look for quantity rather than quality. But the fact 
is that the most important bits of advice are those that may be 
stated in a few words, just as the word “ Yes,” which was uttered 
by a great lawyer in response to a letter, saved the client a fortune, 
and the lawyer charged and received a fee of fifty dollars for the 
one word. It had cost him years of hard study and experience to 
know the law on that one important point, and all the client wished 
was to be sure whether to do or not to do a certain thing. Value 
depends on what is accomplished by the advice. 

2. Another and much more important reason is that the first 
eleven treatments are complete in themselves, and we feel warranted 

21 (321) 


322 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER ELEVEN. 

in issuing them singly as well as in this book, because we do not 
find it necessary to advocate the use of other treatments in connec¬ 
tion with them. If you were to a purchase a treatment and, after 
getting it, you found that you must get some more treatments, you 
would at once set down the Ralston Club as a business enterprise, 
the object of which was to squeeze all the money out of you that 
could be had. Such a feeling towards the Club would destroy your 
good will and confidence in its work. Now, as a matter of fact, 
almost all the treatments that run from number twelve to number 
forty-four, are more or less dependent on the first eleven. They 
must of necessity be so. But the}" are not in any instance repeti¬ 
tions of the first eleven, not mere references to them. What we 
mean is that in each of the advanced teatments there are occasional 
uses made of some of the laws set forth in the first eleven or some 
of them; yet much new matter besides. But the mere mention of 
the necessity to look back and read up what is said in an early treat¬ 
ment on some particular point, is proper as long as that early treat¬ 
ment is right at hand in this book, but would be improper if you 
found it necessary to buy that other treatment. This distinction is 
important in the light of honorable business dealings. It of itself is 
sufficient reason why we should not publish the later treatments 
singly. 

As illustrations of this dependence of the later treatments on the 
first eleven, we will cite the following as a few instances only: 

Apoplexy is prevented by a certain plan of living, and part of 
this plan is found in the fifth, also in the sixth, and to a slight 
extent in two or three other treatments; but they are mere aids, as 
the main treatment for the prevention of apoplexy is found in num¬ 
ber twelve, which is devoted to it. But it cannot stand alone, as 
the scope is too broad. 

Then the next treatment of the later ones, the thirteenth, for the 
prevention of appendicitis, is founded on the first and the second as 
direct aids to it. Without the first and second, it would be useless 
to attempt the prevention of this rapidly increasing disease; yet 
they are but parts, small at that, of the means of prevention. To 
rent you the great treatment and then ask you to hire two more 
would place us in a mercenary light, and would not be fair to you. 
When you get one treatment you ought to have all others that are 
needed m that line of cure or prevention, and this could not be ac¬ 
complished unless we withheld those treatments that require the aid 


GENERAL INFORMATION. 


323 


of others. For this reason we have not issued any separately unless 
they are complete each in itself. 

We have taken as examples the first two of the later ones, that 
is, those that follow the first eleven. We might go on with these 
instances for pages, but the principle would remain the same. 

Another point should be mentioned. We refer all through this 
book to the foundation work of Inside Membership. We have so 
announced in advance. There is no treatment in the forty-four 
that can be separated from the book of Inside Membership. W.e do 
not make the repeated reference for the purpose of having you buy 
that book; for, if you do not already own it, you have no right to 
possess this work. It has never been offered to any person except 
with the understanding that such person owns or procures the book 
of Inside Membership, as that is the very essence and foundation of 
all the forty-four treatments. 

Complete Membership is rented on the express condition that you 
own the book on which it is founded; and this fact has been stated so 
many times in advance that no person can properly receive the 
present work without having Inside Membership. 

Once in a while, but not often, reference is made to the study of 
Magnetism in connection with the treatments; and also to the cul¬ 
ture of the chest. These systems are in other books that are so bulky 
that it would be impossible to include them in this work; yet they 
are of such value that we would be blamed if we did not refer to 
them. Study and training make up life’s grandest field of pro¬ 
gress, and it requires great works to supply the needed material. 

The Eenting of the present book of Complete Membership gives 
you a life ownership in its use. As long as you live the book is 
yours. When you die the book reverts to us and the legal title in the 
same is in us. 

In other words it is yours as long as you need it. 

It is a part of the plan of Kalstonisin to convert as many sensible 
persons to its doctrines as possible. All movements that have for 
their end the uplifting of humanity must enlist the attention of 
great numbers of people; and the interest and numbers must be 
kept at all times on the increase. To do this it is necessary that each 
home should have a copy of this book. The plan of giving the work 
in exchange for five new members who procure the book of Inside 
Membership has been just and equitable, and meets with the ap¬ 
proval of our members. 


Important Suctions. 


Not only in the use of the eleven leading Special Treatments that 
precede, but also in the thirty-three that follow this part of the 
present book, is it necessary to remember the facts that govern them. 

In the first place these treatments do not require dieting, except 
in the few instances where life and health are dependent on certain 
fixed restrictions, both in habits and in the use of foods. We require 
but little attention to what is called diet. 

But this does not allow a line of foods that are positively injuri¬ 
ous even to those who are well. There are some things that the 
ablest-bodied man or woman cannot eat with impunity. When we 
order these to be struck off the list of foods we are not asking a 
person to diet; all we seek is the omission of foods that the remotest 
ages of barbarism could not tolerate and that are a blot on the page 
of modern civilization. These foods, such as cake, pastry, etc., are 
equal to poisons, and a person cannot be said to be dieting who omits 
poison from the list of foods taken. Most people pretend to believe 
that such foods are wholesome because they are made from ingre¬ 
dients that are healthful in themselves. Sugar alone, and eggs alone 
are not injurious under certain conditions; but together make a 
violent poison and ferment in the blood. The same is true of butter 
and sugar. And to this danger is added the use of flour cooked just 
enough to coagulate its starch cells, and not enough to disintegrate 
them, making a still more injurious poison. Yet the bulk of the 
food made from the staff of life is thus prepared. 

Added to this source of disease is the so-called social function, 
the formal dinner. It is a hodge podge of articles made as rich and 
indigestible as human ingenuity can devise, and served at a time of 
day when the system is not prepared for any heavy eating even of 
the wholesome kind. The injury done by one of such dinners is not 
overcome by a month of sensible eating; yet there are some people 
who follow them up until they break down in stomach and general 
health. It seems strange that, in order to show respect for friends, 
it is necessary to feed them, to put something in their mouths, when 
genuine esteem should be based upon higher forms of entertain¬ 
ment. The formal dinner is the most deadly weapon of social life. 

(324) 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 12 



THE FIRST OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

The cure of such a disease or attack as apoplexy is entirely out 
of the reach of man. From the very nature of the stroke it is in¬ 
capable of being cured. 

The only thing to be done, if there is a tendency to this dis¬ 
ease, is to take measures to prevent its approach. We are satis¬ 
fied that our methods have saved many from death by the stroke, 
and we believe that all persons may ward off the terrible visitor 
if the precautions and plan of life suggested in the present treat¬ 
ment are carefully adopted. 

It is supposed that men are more prone to the attack than 
women, and statistics show this to be the case. It is also a fact 
that heavily built people, those of thick neck and full face, are 
more likely to become victims of apoplexy than those who are 
thin. The advance in years will also increase the. danger. 

There is some divergence of opinion as to what is and what is 
not apoplexy. The word itself means blow, shock or stroke. The 
effect is unconsciousness coming on suddenly and not slowly. 

In most cases apoplexy is due to the bursting of a blood vessel in 
the brain. 


(325) 


326 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWELVE. 

Ihis is due to a weakening of the walls of the vessels, whereby 
they are unable to endure the pressure of the heart’s pumping 
action, which throws the blood with great energy into all the 
veins and arteries of the system. 

This weakening has a double cause ; first, a poisonous state of 
the blood, generally due to the morbid condition of the kidneys; 
and, second, the deficiency of nutrition in the blood. In other 
words the blood is not rich enough in nutritive matter to build 
strong walls through which the fluid may be forced. The vessels 
dilate, stretch and sooner or later suffer rupture. Before they 
finally burst the head has a constant sense of peculiar fulness, 
showing that there is increased pressure caused by greater ex¬ 
pansion of these vessels in the brain region. 

It must be remembered that the entire quantity of blood in the 
body finds its way into and through the .brain many times in 
every twenty-four hours. If the blood is pure the brain reflects 
the condition in its own health; if deficient, there will be weakness 
m the brain-tissue and the structure of the vessels that abound in 
all its parts; if poisoned, as by the morbid state of the kidneys, the 
evil will be visited upon the organ of the mind almost before it is 
seen in any other part. 

This poisonous condition is primarily the cause of all the 
trouble, for it is in itself the result of the weakened function, and 
at the same time the cause of it. 

From the study of many thousands of cases of apoplectic tenden¬ 
cies we have come to the conclusion that the origin of the malady 
is in carbon poisoning. It is the presence of too much carbon 
m the body, or else of a deterioration of the carbon that is ad¬ 
mitted into the system daily. Following out this belief we have 
been able to check the tendencies wherever due attention has been 
paid to the following suggestions: 

Alcohol may or may not be one of the causes of carbon poison¬ 
ing; it is merely pure carbon in itself, but in a form that has 
been perverted. The use of any form of alcohol by persons who 
are liable to an attack of apoplexy is regarded as most dangerous 
The first rule, then, is to let it alone, no matter how slight may 
be the proportion in the bulk of liquid taken, whether in the 
form of beer, cider, wine, or the liquors; let it alone altogether. 
Most all patent medicines contain alcohol, and not in a very pure 
state; some holding as high a percentage as twenty, and others 


APOPLEXY. 


327 


thirty, forty, etc. These medicines are on the market under vari¬ 
ous guises, and are given to human beings of all ages, ranging 
from the infant to the old man. Much of the concoctions so sold 
will be found to be based upon wood alcohol; a direct poison to 
the brain and optic nerve. We believe that the prevailing neces¬ 
sity of wearing glasses at the present day, which exceeds all pre¬ 
vious experience, is due largely to the taking of these patent 
medicines and the wood alcohol which they contain; for the eyes 
are the first of the organs to change under its influence. Even 
little children are now wearing glasses in over a million of cases in 
this country; and mothers do not hesitate to pour patent medicines 
down the throats of the little ones. 

Never allow any fluid to enter the stomach unless you know 
what it is. 

Whether you use alcohol and patent medicines or not it is 
possible to set up the condition of carbon poisoning by eating too 
much of this kind of food. Sugar is almost pure carbon; but ifc 
becomes a new form of this element when it has passed into the 
blood. If you were to eat nothing but sugar you would bring on 
kidney trouble in a very short time, and carbon poisoning would 
be the result. This would weaken the walls of the blood vessels 
in the brain and thus give rise to a condition favorable to apo¬ 
plexy. 

People who do not like confectionery are, as a rule, fond of 
alcohol. On the other hand, those who do not like alcohol are, as 
a rule, fond of sweets in some form or other. It is the desire for 
carbon that rules most people. The excess produces the danger. 

But there is another kind of danger that does not depend solely 
on excess; it is the imperfect disposal of the carbon after it enters 
the system. Digestion, use, absorption and the final burning up of 
the fuel, for that is the only office of the carbon, must be complete at 
each stage, or the result will be carbon poisoning. 

To secure control of these conditions, it is necessary to consume 
less of this fuel. That is, take less alcohol; or, rather, none at all; 
take less of the sweet things, avoiding all candies and sugars, cakes, 
and rich cooking. Carbon is present in all grains, all flour, all 
sugars, all sweets, all fats, all oils, and in nearly all else that is 
eaten; but there are certain kinds of food that are known as the 
carbon class, and it is these that are to be used in lesser degree until 
the apoplectic tendencies disappear altogether. 


328 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWELVE. 

Having started with the disuse of all forms of alcohol, and then 
with the omission of all candies, sweets, cakes, pastries, etc., the 
next step is to let white bread alone. This is nearly all carbon. 
For breakfast use cracked wheat, soaked over night, then cooked in 
a double boiler for an hour, and finally toasted in a hot oven until 
nearly dry; also whole wheat bread made from wheat rich in gluten, 
or a hard winter wheat, remembering that only those mills that are 
located far to the north are likely to have this kind of wheat; and 
take beef cooked enough to make it very hot, but not brown or well 
done; with a variety of green vegetables. 

For dinner and supper get all the vegetables you can, unless you 
are troubled with rheumatism; in which case, follow the strict diet 
of the Eleventh Special Treatment for that disease. In fact, you 
could with advantage transfer that whole diet to this malady, and 
the result would be that not one person in a million would fail to 
ward off apoplexy, provided the other directions of this treatise are 
strictly adhered to. 

The principles to be remembered and applied are these, and they 
tell the whole story: 

1. All alcohol and all drinks that are not allowed herein must 
be avoided. 

2. All sugars, sweets, cake, pastry, rich food, rich gravies, spices, 
and all combinations that are forbidden in chapter twenty-one of 
the book of Inside Membership, must be avoided. 

3. Heavy meals at all times, no matter what is eaten, are decid¬ 
edly injurious. One such meal may bring on the fatal shock. 

4. Light eating is best; that is, you must come away from the 
table hungry so as not to crowd the work of the digestive tract; for 
when it cannot dispose of ALL that is eaten, some of it will turn to 
perverted carbon and set up the poisons in the blood that break 
down the walls of the blood vessels in the brain. 

5. Sedentary habits must be wholly overcome. You must no 
longer be a person of such habits. If you stand all day you are not 
sedentary, for that word means sitting. You may find it incon¬ 
venient to stand all day. But medicines will not take the place of 
standing; and what are you to do? Can you suggest anything 
better than to avoid the sitting habit ? Of course it will be permis- 

Isible to sit for the purpose of resting; but not longer than a half 
hour at a time, unless you are in church or school; and both these 
places provide for frequent standing and sitting, alternating con- 


APOPLEXY. 


329 


stantly. The short sermon, the short lesson: these are the best for 
health; but the session need not be short on that account. We have 
seen our pupils in four-hour sessions, having eight different teachers 
in that time, a half an hour each, and the pupils were on their feet 
three minutes, then rested three minutes for explanatory work, 
then were active again on their feet for three minutes, and so con¬ 
tinued for the four hours; and there was a constant increase in their 
health and general improvement in every way. This is the method 
that destroys the sedentary habit. Most persons have work that can 
be done as well sitting as standing. Apoplexy, paralysis and heart 
failure were old diseases a century ago; and the stand-up desk was 
introduced to overcome the sitting habit for the millions who had 
to study or write. 

6. The head and neck must be duly exercised by special move¬ 
ments, the purpose of which is to invite better circulation of the 
blood, in, through and out of the brain; for apoplexy is largely at¬ 
tended by defective circulation. These exercises must of necessity 
be placed in the zone of the neck; but they reach the entire brain, 
and control the increased suppply of nutrition in the brain. All 
blood that enters the latter organ must pass in through the neck, 
and out through the same zone. These special exercises are as 
follows: 

A. Stand. Have the weight at all times on the balls of the feet. 
This relieves the pressure on the spinal column. 

B. While standing as directed, raise the chin, then lower it; at 
first very slightly; then more and more in range, until you can see 
the wall behind you. Avoid straining. Do all gently. This pre¬ 
caution is of the highest importance. 

C. When the foregoing exercise has been mastered, then vary it 
by turning the head to the right, then to the left, and continue for 
three minutes at one trial; at first gently and in slight movements; 
but, as you find more strength coming from the practice, turn the 
head so that you can see the floor over the right shoulder behind 
you, then reverse the face to the left until you can see the floor over 
the other shoulder behind you. This range of movement cannot be 
acquired for some weeks; so do not be discouraged if you fail. Make 
no effort to do the utmost at the beginning, for straining the 
muscles will do more injury than good. 

Much might be added in the way of exercise, for there is almost 
no limit to this branch of the treatment. For instance, the move- 


330 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWELVE. 

ment of the right ear down toward the right shoulder, then of the 
left ear down towards the left shoulder, will make a very excellent 
variation. And the craning neck movements are also valuable. But. 
what we have given will suffice. 

A sermon on what to think about and what not to think about, 
would be apropos, and is generally found in methods of natural 
treatment; but the disadvantage is the impossibility to get people 
to control their own thoughts. In most cases it is physically im¬ 
possible. The best aid to the control of thought or feeling is 
found in the Special Treatment on Self Magnetism. All books 
and treatments referred to in this monograph are already in your 
possession, or they would never be mentioned. 

Let any person who has fear of apoplectic tendencies follow the 
plan herein given, and give it reasonable attention, and there will 
not be the slightest danger of the stroke. The difficulty will be to 
induce people to believe that it is necessary to take time by the fore¬ 
lock in the treatment of this common and most dangerous malady. 
They will wait till it is too late, and then all remedies are useless. 




From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Balston Company. 
All Bights Beserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 13 



THE SECOND OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

Casting aside all attempts to describe this rapidly increasing 
malady by terms that can be understood only by the profession, 
we will seek the more direct and the plainer course of making the 
main facts clear to all minds, and prescribing the right course to 
pursue. In the start we will say that Ralstonism does not claim 
to be able to cure all diseases. The day may come when we will 
cover more ground than now. Our purpose is to find out what 
must be done in order to get well or to keep from getting sick, 
and to convey as much information to our members as we have 
secured ourselves. 

Year by year new successes have come to us from our inves¬ 
tigations, and thus more maladies are overcome. As far as we 
are able to be of help to our members, we shall add new treatments 
to our list. 

Each line of disease requires many years of investigation, ex¬ 
periment and thorough test, not in a few cases, but in many, be¬ 
fore we can safely declare that we have found the perfect cure 
or prevention. 

We make these remarks at the opening of this treatment for 

(331) 


332 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THIRTEEN. 


appendicitis, as it is becoming one of the most frequent and 
dangerous of modern diseases. 

It cannot be cured, except under the treatment of a skilled 
physician, and perhaps with the aid of a surgeon. 

When the attack is on, it is useless to seek remedies. The only 
thing to do is to save life, and get the body in a state of repair 
as soon as possible. The wise course to pursue is to prevent ap¬ 
pendicitis. 

There are many prejudiced people who believe that this disease 
is the result of the imagination of physicians of the present day. 
There are others who believe that the knife of the surgeon is not 
needed. To these two classes we will state that, while in some 
cases the knife might have been avoided, there is more danger in 
delay than in the mistake of making a needless operation. The 
latter in and of itself need not prove fatal; for other side-causes 
may step in and bring death. It is true that operations have 
saved hundreds of lives in cases where death would have other¬ 
wise been the only issue. It is also true that a few needless 
operations have caused death where lives would have been spared 
had there been no operations. In the most recent methods of 
hospitals the danger of this mistake is being lessened. Our ad¬ 
vice is to let your own family physician decide the matter; but do 
not wait too long. Delay is most dangerous. 

The other error in the public mind is the belief that appendici¬ 
tis is due to the imagination of doctors. The public argue that 
there was no such malady a generation ago, and that nature could 
not have invented it, therefore the doctors must have produced it. 
Of course this is simple fallacy. 

Appendicitis cannot be traced back and merged into some other 
disease that existed under another name a generation or more 
ago. It is the legitimate offspring of certain errors of to-day. 
These we will name as follows: 

A. There was never a time in the history of the world when 
there were food adulterations of so grave a nature and in such 
abundance as to-day. 

B. There was never a time when baking powder was used in 
such quantities as to-da}^. 

C. There was never a time when so much meat was eaten. 

D. There was never a time when so many entrails and viscera 
of animals were eaten. 


APPENDICITIS. 


333 


Appendicitis as a disease of a puzzling nature is being studied 
more than any other malady of to-day. Experts have come to 
various conculsions as to the cause; but the consensus of the best 
opinion is in the line stated. One of the most learned of in¬ 
vestigators places the blame upon the excess of meat eating, 
which is a feature of the times. Others blame it on the adultera¬ 
tions of food and articles that go into the stomach, including 
medicines and drinks. Others think it is due to the extraordinary 
consumption of baking powder. Others believe that it is due to 
the poisoning effect of the use of the brain, the liver, the sweet¬ 
breads, the hoofs, the kidneys and other parts of animals that 
enter so largely into the food lists of to-day. 

Let us see if they are not all right. 

Appendicitis is a catarrhal inflammation of the lining of the 
intestines, which spreads into the vermiform attachment, which 
hangs to the outside edge, but which is closed off from the intes¬ 
tine by part of the lining or mucus covering. 

The appendix is thus kept from contact with the actual con¬ 
tents of the intestines. 

When any irritating food or other matter has set up inflamma¬ 
tion of the intestines, so that catarrh of that membrane follows, 
the covering that protects the little opening to the appendix 
will be sloughed off, the opening itself enlarged from the pres¬ 
sure, and the foul matter will lodge within the small part, where 
it will be turned to decay. As there is no means for it to get back, 
a new phase to the condition ensues, and peritonitis involves the 
whole region. 

It is often difficult to distinguish between peritonitis and ap¬ 
pendicitis; as the latter leads to the former. -The appendix is at 
the right of the body, low down in the abdomen. At this locality, 
just above the hip bone and to the front of it, an acute pain will 
be noticed, generally having arisen from a slight tenderness in 
the beginning. It soon grows in force, causing intense agony 
and great feebleness of the body. Ulceration sets m, and may 
be recognized by the discharge of pus in the excretions. This 
is genuine appendicitis. Grape seeds may be freely swallowed 
without causing appendicitis, and we doubt if anything that is 
eaten ever instigates this malady, except by causing catarrh of 
the region. The fear of danger from seeds is really baseless, and 
is one of those alarms that are common to ignorance. 


334 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THIRTEEN. 

All sorts of things find their way into the appendix when the 
covering-membrane slonghs off. 

Many persons have appendicitis in more or less aggravated 
form without knowing what the matter is. When the vitality 
responds nicely, a recovery comes about of itself. In some cases 
the appendage is obliterated; in others, the mouth closes and* 
shuts in a slimy, serous fluid that proves highly poisonous and 
results in the formation of abscesses in its structure and adja¬ 
cent parts; and, in the fatal cases, a more or less extended peri¬ 
tonitis, or inflammation of the abdomen, hastens death. The 
first prominent symptoms are pain, external swelling, obstinate 
constipation, vomiting, belching of gas, bloating of the abdomen, 
hiccoughs, fever, and sometimes a swelling of the right leg. The 
patient prefers to lie upon the back with the right leg drawn up. 

The pain commences suddenly, as a rule, and is of a sharp, 
cutting, boring nature, increasing on motion. The swelling makes 
its appearance in the lower righthand side of the abdomen, a 
little distance above the fold of the groin, and is felt directly 
under the abdominal wall, which is movable upon it, except when 
a perforation to the outside is in progress. It develops rapidly, 
and in a few days reaches its height; and at this time the patient 
usually vomits ten or twelve times daily, emitting a watery yel¬ 
lowish or greenish fluid, which, as the disease progresses and the 
constipation continues, assumes a very disagreeable odor. By the 
continued activity of the upper bowels, the contents of the smaller 
intestines are forced back into the stomach, when they are thrown 
up and afford temporary relief. 

The use of ice-cold alcohol, alternated with extremely hot water 
in the usual hot water bag, repeated very frequently, will hasten 
the removal of all inflammation and give a vigor to the parts 
within that will tend to drive out the obstructing matter. 

The diet should not be neglected, for the tone of the system] 
must be maintained. The following articles are recommended by 
the best specialists in this malady: Fresh milk, to which has been 
added a whipped egg with a little pinch of salt; gruels made of 
whole wheat meal; iceland moss, thinned down with fresh milk 
and sugar or salt to taste; and, when the fever is less, strong 
soups or beef extracts, baked potatoes and plain foods. The 
drinks should consist of hot distilled water in great quantities, 
aided by teas made of slippery elm bark and gum arabic. A sur- 


APPENDICITIS. 


335 


gical operation may be avoided if the foregoing directions are put 
into early application. 

The first sensible thing to do is to call in your family physician. 
Until he comes make use of an outward application of hot antiphlo¬ 
gistine, or Colorado mud. This is not a medicine, but a natural 
poultice and antiseptic cure. The salve known as antiphlogistine 
is for sale all over the world, and is well known eve^where. It 
takes the place of the old time remedy, the flaxseed poultice. 

Antiphlogistine should be spread upon a cloth, after the can 
has been placed in hot water till the contents are quite hot. Never 
heat it on the cloth; always in the can. The directions call for 
spreading it hot as can be borne on the skin itself; but this is 
not the general practice, but is perhaps better. The air des¬ 
troys some of the remarkable qualities of the salve, and all uses 
of it should be as quickly over with as possible. In case of a 
deep-seated inflammation the application of a thick mass of ab¬ 
sorbent cotton is needed, and this requires that the hot antiphlo¬ 
gistine should be placed an eighth of an inch over the affected part, 
and this then covered with an inch in thickness of the absorbent 
cotton, over which the cloth is to be placed, and the whole bound 
in position. This can remain so for about four hours, and then 
the same repeated. If there is no discomfort from the drying of 
the salve or mud, it can remain unchanged for eight to ten hours, 
until the severity of the pain has disappeared. 

This remedy will not effect a cure if the inflammation has gone 
on already to the fatal stage before it is tried. By the fatal stage 
is meant that condition where the skilled eye sees no hope of 
recovery. 

These are means of remedy and relief to be used until your 
doctor arrives. They will do no harm, and will be in the direct 
line of a cure, if such is possible; and, as such, they will help the 
physician. 

Prevention is the only sure remedy. 

The prevention is always certain. It consists in avoiding the 
conditions that bring an appendicitis. The foods that we have 
named in this treatise are to be given up altogether. 

One cannot know what is adulterated, and for this reason it is 
better to be on the safe side by following the methods of high 
regime as described in the book of Inside Membership. Under 


336 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER THIRTEEN. 


that plan it is not likely that you will have to eat much that is 
adulterated. 

Baking powders and bakers’ bread should be discontinued alto¬ 
gether. We have made many observations of cases of appendi¬ 
citis and have found it always true that the victims have eaten 
foods that are made with baking powders; and their grocery bills 
contained items the aggregate of which, in baking powder pur¬ 
chases, has been astounding. All this is fully explained in the 
book of Inside Membership. The high regime of that work is the 
most beneficial plan of living. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Bights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 14k 



THE THIRD OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

That old age is a disease is being settled at the present day by 
new discoveries in the functions of the body. 

Most investigators are satisfied that it is a bacterial accumula¬ 
tion in the body; and they reach this conclusion because of the 
bacteria that attend senility, making the system a prey to other 
maladies. Like infancy old age is attended by disorders peculiar 
to itself. 

We do not think that there is a germ of age as some writers 
claim. The body ripens because of the progress it makes towards 
death, beginning this progress as soon as puberty commences. The 
only question to be determined is whether this ripening is neces¬ 
sary or not. 

We do not propose to assert that one can live forever; for there 
are so many other means of taking off besides age that it would 
seem as if death were the heritage of life, the purpose being to 
make ready for a greater scope of existence elsewhere. 

But the fact that can be easily proved is that age stands as one 
of the many kinds of disease, if we take the opposite fact as true, 
that a change of habits is sure to hold off the advance of age. 

(337) 


22 





338 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOURTEEN. 

Such maladies as rheumatism, weakness of sight, grey hair, etc., 
are due to something more than the ripening process of the body. 
When the hair loses its color, there is small chance of ever getting 
it back. When the second or final teeth are gone, no others are 
expected, except the so-called wisdom group. Bald heads are 
sometimes recovered by exposure to the winds and air, but not as a 
rule. Yet the greying of the hair and the loss of the hair are due 
to a disordered condition of the blood, which might have been 
prevented had the proper steps been taken in youth. It is gen¬ 
erally too late in middle life when the mischief has been done. 
Likewise the loss of the second or final teeth can be prevented by 
a reasonable amount of care if they are given attention in time, 
but not when the disease of decay has set in. We see the teeth 
weaken under the strain of decay; and, because they are where they 
can be seen and intimately studied, we know the process to be 
that of decay; but, when the whole body suffers a similar decrepi¬ 
tude, we do not call it by its right name, but say it is ripening and 
not decay. The fact is it is decay and is preventible. Just as 
the weakening of the teeth can be warded off, so can the decay of the 
body be held back. Many of the older races of men died with 
sound teeeth. To have to endure the toothache when there were 
no doctors to give relief, would have been too severe a punishment 
for the earlier dwellers of earth. This torture has been left for 
more recent ages. 

The point is that, as the teeth decay from neglect or wrong 
methods of caring for them, so the body passes into its general 
decay, step by step, but with certainty, until it is at last senile. If 
it is possible to prevent the decay of the teeth, it is possible to 
prevent the decay of the body. Different methods must be employed. 
The teeth are saved by proper use of them and proper cleaning of 
them. The kind of blood that is made by the diet of to-day will not 
make good teeth or good bodies; and what we are is determined 
by what we eat and what we do. 

The first step to be taken to ward off the habit of aging in the 
body is to adopt the high regime of your book of Inside Member¬ 
ship. This will make good blood, and there will be less tendency 
to loss of teeth or loss of hair or the greying of the latter, or the 
wear and tear of the physical life. 

The first tendency of the body to take on the conditions of old 
age is in the formation of bone in every available part. This is 


AGING. 


339 


called the osseous tendency. The second is the habit of accumu¬ 
lating lime all through the veins, vessels and small channels of the 
body. This is called the calcareous tendency. 

Nature affords a process to youth which she intends should be 
reversed when growth is attained. This claim was first stated by 
this Club; yet, although the statement is new, the facts which 
support it are old and authenticated. These facts we will look at 
now. At birth this bone was gelatine. Life begins in gelatine 
and ends in bones. Ask any physician; he will tell you that 
old age is but the osseous tendency of heart, brain and arteries; that 
ninety-seven per cent, of all people past middle life are ossifying, 
or turning to bones, in the heart, in the brain and in the arteries; 
that a steady, gradual change in this direction is going on from 
youth to age; and that when any part of the body, excepting the 
bones, begins to secrete bony matter, weakness follows; resulting, 
first, in reducing the circulation; second, impoverishing the blood; 
third, breaking down tissues; and fourth, exposing the organs to 
the ravages of germ life. These facts are stated by Koch, Gru- 
maine, Browne, Lewes, Bichat, Baillie, and a score of others, and 
are proved by observation. 

It is necessary that the osseous tendency should occur in youth. 
This process makes the bones and gives them hardness. All foods 
and liquids, except fruits and distilled water, contain carbonate 
and phosphate of lime and other calcareous salts, which develop 
bones; and, by a continuous action, carry the tendency to every 
part of the body. When the bones become hardened, the body 
reaches its limit of growth. If a young person should eat fruits, 
drink only distilled water, and follow the Ralston system of foods, 
the bones would not harden for many years, and the body would 
attain to great size. This hardening of the bones determines why 
some persons are small and others large. 

Medical works say “it is as natural to die as to be born.** 
Until within a few years all physicians have asserted that “ there 
comes a time when the body wears out, and death is the penalty, 
visiting all that live.” Apart from disease which destroys life, 
the wear and tear of the body which brings on age are absolutely 
unnecessary. We have seen that ossification is necessary to youth, 
in order that the bones may be formed and made strong. This 
action of the blood which deposits bony matter is Icept up through 
life. Why do we not reverse the process? Old age, the wear 


340 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOURTEEN. 

and tear of life, the breaking down of the functions of the body, 
are all caused by this osseous process, which is itself caused by 
calcareous deposits. 

There are five great results which sooner or later follow the 
osseous tendency of the system: 

1. The hardening of the skin; whereupon the skin wrinkles, 
gets old, the hair is killed, and the blood does not circulate freely, 
causing an aged look in place of the freshness of youth. We say 
this can he prevented. 

2. The brain turns to bony substance in its intricate parts; it 
loses flexibility, becomes hard, gets “set,” and deep thinking is 
impossible. 

3. The heart is likewise clogged; its circulative action is im¬ 
peded, the body suffers by reason of poor blood, all the organs 
begin to break down from lack of blood, and sickness or severe 
exhaustion is liable at any moment to cause “ heart failure.” We 
say this can he prevented. 

4. The arteries all through the body become clogged by the 
osseous tendency, and weariness results, causing the most serious 
loss of energy. We say this can he prevented. 

5. The bones, muscles, sinews, tendons, ligaments and tissues 
become stiff, and old age “rheumaticky” old age—even at forty, 
sets in, attended by multitudinous ills. We say this can he pre¬ 
vented. 

Experiments, everywhere universal, prove that our theories are 
correct. Nature and Nature’s God decreed to man the power of 
reasoning out his life; to animals, the misfortune of a diminished 
brain. To show that scientists are now accepting the Ralston 
doctrines, we refer our members to the latest medical works and 
publications, not only in America, but everywhere in Europe. 
Physicians and others are beginning to think in new channels. 
Notable among the late writings of scientists is the article of 
Dr. Wm. Kinnear in the June (1893) number of the North 
American Review beginning at page 775. We quote the follow¬ 
ing from it: Very few people, it is safe to say, desire old age. 
Men and women harassed by trouble, or overpowered by sorrow, 
surrounded by disgrace or tortured by pain, may long for death, 
but not for a hundred or two hundred years of human life. Old 
age is of two kinds. One, the passing of many years; the other, 
brought about by excesses either mental or physical. 


AGING. 


341 


We cannot defy death. But we may by searching find certain 
secrets of Nature and apply them to the renewal of the organs 
whose decay is constantly going on in the body. Anatomical ex¬ 
periment and investigation show that the chief characteristics of 
old age are deposits of earthly matter of a gelatinous and fibrinous 
character in the human system. Carbonate and phosphate of 
lime, mixed with other salts of a calcareous nature, have been 
found to furnish the greater part of these earthy deposits. As 
observation shows, man begins in a gelatinous condition; he ends 
in an osseous or bony one—soft in infancy, hard in old age. By 
gradual change in the long space of years, the ossification comes 
on; but after middle life is past, a more marked development 
of the ossific character takes place. Of course these earthy de¬ 
posits, which affect all the physicial organs, naturally interfere 
with their functions. Partial ossification of the heart produces 
the imperfect circulation of the blood, which affects the aged. 
When the arteries are clogged with calcareous matter there is in¬ 
terference with the circulation, upon which nutrition depends. 
Without nutrition there is no repair of the body. Hence, G. H. 
Lewes states that “ if the repair were always identical with the 
waste, life would only then be terminated by accident, never by 
old age.” 

Even accidents would grow fewer as the brain gets clearer. 

In the chemical changes constantly taking place in our bodies, 
oxygen plays the most important part by all odds. By oxidation, 
which is a constant waste or rust of life, the physical system is 
hourly destroyed, and then again built up by the reparation of the 
food we live upon. Albumen and fibrine exist in the blood, and are 
resolved into their component elements—carbon, hydrogen, nitro¬ 
gen, oxygen, sulphur and phosphorus. By oxidation, the albumen 
is converted into fibrine, which nourishes the organs of our bodies. 
But in repairing their waste an excess of this substance accumu¬ 
lates in the blood vessels, causing their induration, and thus gradu¬ 
ally lessening their caliber. Gelatine is an oxide of fibrine, as 
fibrine is an oxide of albumen. Oxidation causes these substances in 
part to be decomposed, and afterwards eliminated through the kid¬ 
neys. A constant struggle is daily going on in our bodies, when in 
the most perfect health, between accumulation and elimination. 
And these accumulations, becoming greater in old age than the 
power of elimination, produce the effects we term feeling one’s age, 


342 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOURTEEN. 


Paradoxical as it may sound, certain foods which we put into^our 
mouths to preserve our lives help at the same time to hurry us to 
the inevitable gate of the cemetery. A diet made up of fruit princi¬ 
pally is the best for people advancing in years, for the reason that 
being deficient in nitrogen the ossific deposits so much to be dreaded 
are more likely to be suspended. Moderate eaters have in all cases 
a much better chance of long life than those addicted to excesses of 
the table. Blockages of the functions of the stomach are more usual 
to those who eat more than the stomach can utilize than to light 
eaters. Mr. De Lacy Evans, who made many careful researches in 
these regions of science, comes to the conclusion that fruits, fish and 
poultry, and young mutton and veal, contain less of the earthy salts 
than other articles of food, and are therefore best for people. Beef 
and old mutton usually are overcharged with salts and should be 
avoided. If one desires to prolong life, therefore, it seems that 
moderate eating and a diet containing a minimum amount of earthy 
particles is most suitable to retard old age by preserving the system 
from blockages. 

The powerful solvent properties of distilled water are well known. 
As carbonate of lime exists in nearly all drinking water, the careful 
distillation eliminates this harmful element. As a beverage, dis¬ 
tilled water is rapidly absorbed into the blood; it keeps soluble those 
salts already in the blood and facilitates their excretion, thus pre¬ 
venting their undue deposit. The daily use of distilled water is, 
after middle life, one of the most important means of preventing 
secretions and the derangement of health. Hence, to sum up, the 
most rational modes of keeping physical decay or deterioration at 
bay, and thus retarding the approach of old age, are avoiding all 
foods rich in the earth salts, using much fruit, especially juicy, un¬ 
cooked apples, and by taking daily two or three tumblerfuls of dis¬ 
tilled water. 

The osseous and the calcareous tendencies are due to the same 
cause, but produce different effects; the former turning the flexible 
bones and cartilages to a hardness, while the latter fills up the veins, 
the blood vessels, the tissue, and all the interstices of the body, in¬ 
cluding the portals of the heart and the avenues of the brain, with 
a limy deposit that prevents the assimilation of nutrition from the 
blood and takes away the elasticity of life. This is surely old age. 
You may have seen kitchen utensils in which hard water has been 
boiled; the interior surfaces being covered with the mineral deposits 


AGING. 


343 


of the water. This is what is going on all through the progress of 
the calcareous tendency. 

Added to these mechanical causes is that of the toxin of old age, 
or the poison that accumulates during the long years when the deat 
of the body is laying its foundation for disease. What this deat is 
will be found explained in the book of Inside Membership, to which 
we refer often, as all these treatments are founded upon that work. 

The moles, freckles, pigment-discoloration, and the various forms 
of skin changes, are due to waste-toxins that remain in the system 
for years and years, and peep out in old age. These can be pre¬ 
vented by the methods referred to in the preceding paragraphs of 
this chapter. 

The excessive use of mineral waters, and particularly the drink¬ 
ing of hard water, leaves a lime or other earthy deposit in the 
blood. This deposit clings to the interior lining of all the veins, 
arteries and flesh tissues in the body; and, after many years of 
accumulation, it begins to clog the whole system. The heart grows 
weak, because of this interference with its action; and is often the 
first organ to feel the approach of age. Sometimes the deposits 
collect in lumps, and produce “ stone ” in the bladder, or elsewhere; 
and many a premature death follows. 

In Europe there is very little soft water. All the wells and 
ponds are hard and limy, except in rare instances. To avoid 
“ stone ” from drinking water, many people use beer and wine, and 
it is said of Europeans that the three most common maladies are 
“ stone,” “ diabetes,” and “ Bright’s disease.” 

The fags of the blood of a very healthy person pick up a great 
deal of lime and pass it off into the excretions; but, when the fags 
are destroyed by an excess of deat-food, the lime and earthy salts 
remain and clog the veins and arteries. This means rapid decrepi¬ 
tude and early senility. Drinking water should always be soft. 
Rain water is the best. Distilled water, thoroughly aerated, is next 
best. Good spring water is excellent. Sellers of stills for making 
distilled water claim that it is “ all nonsense ” to aerate the water; 
but we have shown a large number of results from the use of dis¬ 
tilled water that was not aerated; and, by comparison with results 
obtained from the use of distilled water that had been thoroughly 
aerated, the fact is found that the latter is the only right way of 
using such water. We have always given facts the preference over 
theories. 


344 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOURTEEN. 


Gray hair is the result of deat in excess. While the use of 
plasmic food will not change the color back again to the shade of 
early youth, nor reduce the grayness, it is absolutely certain to 
prevent further whitening of the hair. This much we know. Yet 
any excess of dissipation will counteract the good work. 

The loss of hair is due to deat and to weak circulation in the 
scalp, caused by the wearing of a tight hat, or any head-gear that 
causes suffocation of the roots of the hair. 

Dandruff is merely deat working through. Some persons con¬ 
stantly comb and pick it off; and dandruff likes nothing better. 
Deat is attracted to the place of greatest excitement; and the more 
you clean the scalp, the more dandruff you will get. Ammonia 
and other washes will not reduce it, as the cause is in the blood, and 
the scraping of the scalp draws it into the growth of scales. On 
the same principle the athletic oarsman has boils and carbuncles 
on the posterior of the body, due to friction in the sitting position; 
and such sores are merely deat working through at the place of 
greatest irritation. All abscesses, pimples, ulcers, etc., are due to 
deat, as has been amply proven; each kind being the result of a 
special kind of toxin from the food eaten. The sores of small-pox 
are deat working out of the body; the use of vaccination is to fight 
down the toxins by a quieter and milder process, which throws the 
deat into the natural evacuations. Some persons do not believe in 
vaccination, on account of the harm it has done in certain cases; 
but any person who has received pure virus and gets serious hxirm 
from it, would meet a terrible death when exposed to small-pox 
itself. Serious harm from vaccination is much better than some 
kinds of small-pox. But if deat-food be discarded, the awful disease 
will become rare. 

The loss of the faculties in old age is due to the one-sided life 
of the brain. The first faculty to go is memory; and it can be very 
easily proved that the non-use of the various kinds of memory, 
especially what is known as portative, leads to atrophy (waste) of 
the brain-tissue throughout a great part of the brain. This waste 
is a partial breakdown of the organ, a weakening of the mind, and 
a softening of the very fiber that should be toughest and most endur¬ 
ing. The practice of the memory exercises, such as we furnish in 
our emoluments, is one of the pleasantest things that can be en¬ 
gaged in; and nature imperatively demands that they be kept 
aliy§ if the mind is to retain its power. With such exercises, any 


AGING. 


345 


man or woman can retain full memory up to the day of death. 
Most persons of fifty are weak in memory. Some in their twenties, 
or thirties, have deficient memory. 

What can be sadder? With the loss of memory, all the pleasant 
recollections of youth pass away. The faces of friends are half a 
blank, and friendships crumble into the dust of oblivion. Love is 
dead fruit. What is the hope of life to humanity, here or here¬ 
after, if memory fails to recall the faces, forms, friendships and 
loves that have endeared people to each other in this world. 

No faculty should die. No faculty will live if disused. You 
cannot keep senses alive if you give them nothing to do. Nor will 
the powers of the mind and body survive the wreck of the decades, 
if they are allowed to rust. 

We believe that old age is a penalty. We know that disease is a 
penalty. Any person, no matter how sick, who really wishes to 
get well and to stay well, and who wishes these blessings in the 
full spirit of sincerity, who wishes them, say, earnestly enough to 
get right down to the work of a little self-denial, and a little re¬ 
adjustment of the habits of daily life; why, such a person is sure 
of getting well and of staying well. 

There is everything in this world to live for. No book was ever 
made that was large enough to hold the list of joys and beauties 
that may be cultivated in the teeming years of human life. The 
home contains possibilities of happiness that require only an awaken¬ 
ing of the mind to make them real. Most people grope blindly in 
the dark for the sources of contentment and supreme peace, when 
they are just a step ahead holding out their sweet hands to be 
grasped and caressed. 

Most people grow old because they feel themselves helpless to 
maintain their youth. The way is clearly shown in this book. As 
you read these pages, there are good influences all about you, wait¬ 
ing for your resolution to turn about, break the spell of indifference 
and defective judgment, and look to higher and nobler sources for 
inspiration; then these influences, like attendant angels, will take 
you by the hand and lead you in new paths to realms of health, 
of success, of happiness and power. 

Old age will be merely the accumulation of years. Faces, not 
now wrinkled, should never lose their smoothness; hair, not now 
gray, should retain its natural color; the body should be erect and 
firm, the step elastic, and the eyes bright. All the senses should 


S46 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FOURTEEN. 


remain perfect, and all the faculties keen and vigorous. Strength 
and power of body, mind, nerves and heart, should know no failing. 

When the angel of death comes, if come he must, his dark visita¬ 
tion will be announced by a gentle falling asleep, with mind alert 
and memory clear. Children, grown to excess of years, and genera¬ 
tions in train, will come to clasp the hand and kiss the brow, to 
bring flowers in token of happy events now gone by forever, and to 
bid the traveler a happy journey to the land his eyes now look upon 
in the eager anticipation of the life beyond the grave. 

Death is natural when the faculties and senses fall asleep without 
failing, just as the body of a strong man falls asleep at night 
Warning comes in unmistakable manner, and the running down of 
the clock of life is the logical method of its cessation. There is no 
pain, no regret, no tears. The traveler is as sure of meeting the 
loved ones in the world beyond as the sun is sure of shining again. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER IS 


KlOQ® & 


* Boils and Carbuncles 




THE FOURTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

Boils and carbuncles are different afflictions and are due to dif¬ 
ferent causes. Both are disagreeable, and carbuncles are dangerous, 
while certain boils, as the boil of the face, may prove fatal. All such 
sores weaken the body and deprive the mind and the organs of the 
vitality necessary for the activities of life. 

The old idea that boils cleaned out the system is true only in 
the fact that they clean out the good of the blood and the best 
quality of the nerves. They do not clean out anything bad. They 
bring bad into the body and keep it on the increase. If you are 
visited by a boil and let it do the supposed cleaning out, it will be 
followed by another, and Ihen two or more will come, and still 
others, not only for a year but for an endless term of years. Now, 
if they were cleansing there ought to come a time when they would 
get through of themselves. But such a period does not come. 

The boil begins at some place that is exposed to dirt and friction. 
In this dirt and by the rubbing of the friction the germs of the boil 
are planted in the skin; and, if they have the right soil in which 
to grow, they will soon make themselves manifest. 

The presence of a rapidly developing colony of microbes is well 
attested by examination under the microscope. The name of the 

(347) 




348 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FIFTEEN. 


germ or microbe is staphylococcus. This germ may be cultivated 
apart from the human body, and then transmitted to others, caus¬ 
ing boils wherever it finds the right soil. 

The inflammation begins in the glandular structure and involves 
the skin and the cellular tissue under it.^A red pimple forms on the 
surface, and a small point is seen at the top of it. In this point 
a hair may generally be observed. If, at this time, the hair is 
pulled out and the boil touched with a solution of carbolic acid, the 
germs will be killed, and the pimple will grow no larger. After¬ 
wards if it progresses until the ring is formed, a drop of caustic solu¬ 
tion applied to the center of the boil will often drive it off. The 
purpose is to check it in its first stages. All boils can be conquered 
if dealt with when in the pimple state; but not so easily after¬ 
wards. 

If you are addicted to the tendency of having boils, they will keep 
on increasing if this method is not pursued. They should be looked 
after at the start of each one, and not wait till they have taken on 
size and become painful. 

Prevention will save poisoning the system. 

In the early stages of the painful part of its progress it is bet¬ 
ter to take heroic measures and stop its advancement. This can be 
done by the application of a gum known as galbanum, which can 
be bought at the drug store, and with this an opium plaster should 
be placed over the boil. The Erasmus Wilson plaster of opium is 
the best and can be had at the druggist’s. The pain will at once 
cease, the inflammation will go down, and the core will separate 
without further pain. This is not the prescribing of medicine, but 
the use of external aids designed to overcome the pain. It should 
be in line with all plain home remedies. A hole should be cut 
in the center of the plaster when it is time for the discharge of the 
core. 

In the absence of these aids, it is well to use hot water with a 
sponge on the boil, keeping up the applications for a long time, vary¬ 
ing from ten minutes to an hour. The water should be made as 
much hotter as you proceed as can be borne. You will find that, 
at first, it is not possible to use as high a temperature as will be en¬ 
dured after a few minutes, for the heat in the water deadens the 
nerves, hastens the circulation and destroys millions of the germs. 
If the water can be kept from touching the skin around the boil it 
may be applied scalding hot on the sore itself, 


BOILS AND CARBUNCLES. 349 

Immediately after this part of the treatment is accomplished, 
heat in hot water a can of antiphlogistine, then spread the mud on a 
small piece of cloth and place it over the boil and the surrounding 
parts. Change this once every four hours. 

The use of this mud, known as antiphlogistine, is effective even 
from the start, if the earliest steps have failed to stop the growth 
of the boil. 

Enough has been said to indicate that a fight should be made 
against the increase of the number of these pests. Do not allow 
them to come on the theory that they clean out the system. 

We will, for a moment, look at the carbuncle and see what it is; 
then we will pass to the more important question of preventing 
rather than curing these maladies. The carbuncle is the attendant 
of a diseased condition of the system. It may indicate the coming 
on of diabetes, or gout, or uric acid formations. 

It generally assails the region of the spine, but not always. It 
prefers the neck directly under the scalp, near the spine, or medulla. 
In proportion as it gets near the scalp it becomes dangerous; and all 
scalp carbuncles are regarded as fatal, unless they can be broken up 
in the very start. 

The carbuncle, wherever it may appear, is larger, wider, deeper 
and more painful than the boil. It has a number of apertures which 
often run into one before the matter is wholly discharged. When 
it is accompanied by albuminuria or by actual diabetes, it is likely 
to prove fatal. 

After the carbuncle is developed, and also while it is forming, it 
should be treated in exactly the same way as the boil, the care of 
which we have just stated. 

But it requires no great amount of thought to suggest the neces¬ 
sity of preventing the boil and the carbuncle altogether, for the cure 
is the wrong end of the process. Let us see what the preventive 
methods are: 

If there is a tendency to diabetes, then depend upon the treatment 
given in this book for that malady. If there is uric acid, or an}r of 
its progeny in the system, then follow out the treatment given herein 
for rheumatism, which is also the treatment for uric acid, gout, and 
that class of maladies. In fact, there is no better plan of prevention 
than to couple high regime of the book of Inside Membership with 
either of the two treatments just referred to. This combined plan 
will prevent the appearance of the carbuncle. 


350 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER FIFTEEN. 


The boil is the result of dirt, of friction and of the soil in the 
body that is favorable to the growth of the germs. The latter are 
transmitted to the skin by the dirt; and are given their planting by 
the friction. The dirt contains them. All dirt has some of the boil 
microbes. Dirty clothing contains them on its surface. They come 
from everywhere. They are on the skin when there is lack of a 
bath for a day or two, especially if the body has been in a state of 
perspiration and the same clothing retained next to the flesh. 
These are the ways in which the microbes are brought in contact 
with the skin. For this reason the doctors recommend the use of 
hot-water bathing and the Turkish bath for those who are pre-dis- 
posed to boils. But any form of cleanliness is sufficient. The 
principle is that you must not wear the same clothing very long at a 
time. A complete change of the clothes next to the skin is helpful, 
if it is made twice every twenty-four hours, preceded by a thorough 
bath with soap and in salted water, using a quart of salt in the ordi¬ 
nary bath tub, after the body has been washed with soap and hot 
water, and then rinsed off, for the salt water should not be used with 
soap, nor before the body is clean. Salt is an antiseptic that de¬ 
stroys all germs that it reaches. 

Friction should also be avoided. Any person who is afraid of 
being visited by boils or carbuncles, should wear nothing rough 
about the neck, for the afflictions come where the collar rubs against 
the skin. There is dirt on the collar, there is perspiration on the 
skin, and the microbes are rubbed in by the roughness at the point of 
contact. College men who row almost always find the friction at 
the place of sitting the cause of boils in that locality, showing the 
same cause at work there. A tight belt, or parts of the clothing that 
rub against the body in any place favorable to the presence of boils 
will cause them. Thus here is a woman who has a dress that cuts 
her under the armpit, and a boil forms at the sweat glands there. 

In old age or when the system is very feeble, boils come without 
such invitation, and they are difficult to conquer; the better pre¬ 
ventive then being high regime persisted in for years before. 


iTrom Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Bights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 16 



THE FIFTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

Bright’s Disease is the natural penalty of indulgence in any per¬ 
verted food or diet. Alcohol is its most common cause; but there 
are occasional victims who never indulge in alcohol, and they are 
found to be either heavy meat-eaters or medicine-takers; and there 
are a very few others who poison the kidneys by a diet that is wrong 
in other respects. Once the injury is done and the disease well 
seated, there is scarcely a ray of hope. Our treatment has been 
helpful where help is possible. 

Its greatest danger is in the fact that it comes unannounced; that 
the man or woman who is apparently well to-day may be notified 
to-morrow that death is a certainty within a very brief period. Then 
the agony of the pain in some cases is almost unbearable in the last 
weeks of the disease. These considerations render it important that 
no time should be lost in stemming the tide of disaster, if it is not 
yet too late. 

The name Bright's Disease is applied to three conditions of the 
kidneys, namely: the inflammatory affection, the gouty affection, 
and the waxy affection. Whether anything would be gained by a 
further explanation of these conditions, is a question. The most 

(351) 




352 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIXTEEN. 

salient fact is the knowledge that all may result from the same class 
of causes, and all be the direct effect of the uric acid that comes from 
such causes. Associated with this triple condition is the poison that 
is set up in the blood when the system is loaded with improper 
food, and this needs only exposure to cold or dampness to start the 
trouble. 

The first mentioned, or inflammatory condition of Bright’s Dis¬ 
ease, is attended by inflammatory enlargment of the kidneys, fatty 
degeneration, waste or atrophy; with diminishing of urine, loss of 
albumin, tube-casts and dropsy in the earlier stages; and, later on, 
with these symptoms more marked, and attended by breaking down 
of the heart, blood-vessels and various organs. In the first stages a 
cure is possible, and almost certain; in the advanced condition it is 
very rare, as there is nothing on which to base a cure. Death by 
dropsy is common, unless some other organ gives way first. 

The second, or gouty affection of the kidneys, called Bright’s Dis¬ 
ease, is also commonly known as cirrhotic, which means that the 
healthy tissue has wasted away and a thick leathery growth has 
taken its place. The term cirrhotic was originally confined to a 
similar disease of the liver. In either- ease it is due to the use of 
alcohol or to the poison in the blood that results from gout. The 
latter malady is almost exclusively caused by the presence of uric 
acid in the system. This form of Bright’s Disease is the most in¬ 
sidious of all, and gives the least warning. A recent instance illus¬ 
trates its rapidity of advancement. A physician who advocated the 
use of wines and liquors, built a residence a short time ago, in¬ 
tending to find comfort for many years. He was past fifty and in 
seemingly perfect health. “ I ascribe my condition to the moderate 
use of alcohol, and my health is a refutal of the claim that it is in¬ 
jurious.” Three weeks after this speech, four doctors told him that 
he had less than six months in which to live. Cirrhosis had been 
quietly at work, and gave him no sign until it was too late to avert 
its ravages. This is the case of all persons who are attacked by the 
malady in this form. 

The third condition is known as waxy Bright’s Disease. It is 
so often the result of syphilis and venereal disorders that it may be 
classed under such head. There is no cure for it. The use of 
alcohol, meat, eggs, and every kind of stimulant simply hastens its 
development. To keep it dormant as long as possible, follow the 
diet given hereinafter for all cases. 


BRIGHT’S DISEASE. 


353 


The first thing a physician wishes to know is whether the patien", 
suffering from any form of Bright’s Disease, is addicted to the use 
of alcohol or not. One who is an habitual wine-taker will feel dull 
and drowsy after drinking a glass, if the kidnej^s are far advanced 
in this disease; and the symptom is so dangerous that all alcoholic 
beverages should at once be abandoned. Beer is always a source of 
irritation to the kidneys even in health. 

Whether uric acid is always present in the system when the attack 
of Bright’s Disease manifests itself, it is true that the same condi¬ 
tions of ill-health that tend to form uric acid will also destroy the 
kidneys. It cannot be said that any one error of diet will give rise 
to the malady. Among sedentary people there are two well recog¬ 
nized causes that lead to others; and it is probable that of all cases 
of Bright’s Disease in every phase ninety-eight per cent, are due to 
the excessive use of meat, to the use of alcohol, or improper food in 
some form. Always remember that a sudden checking of the per¬ 
spiration, which changes the process of making urea into the de¬ 
velopment of uric acid, is the match that lights the powder. 

Some persons have Bright’s Disease who are light meat eaters and 
who use alcoholic beverages. Others have the malady, yet have al¬ 
ways been temperate; investigation shows them to have been heavy 
meat eaters, or medicine-takers, or users of coffee, tea, spices or other 
barbarisms. In no case has uric acid ever been found in the system 
of one who had been reasonable in diet. Childhood never is troubled 
with this disease unless as a result of scarlatina, a dangerous malady 
in its consequences. 

The age is rarely under forty when Bright’s Disease appears as a 
result of wrong living. It may develop at any time thereafter. A 
proper diet is the surest guarantee against it, and the surest means 
of holding it in check. 

Diet should consist of two methods in the cure of Bright’s Disease. 
The first is that which is called extreme; it is given when all else is 
likely to fail; and is called an exclusive milk diet. It is not pleasant 
to the patient and also tends to develop constipation. These are its 
two chief objections. On the other hand it has advantages that can¬ 
not be secured in any other way. The exclusive milk diet is to be 
continued for nearly two months; from six to eight weeks being the 
rule. 

These advantages are as follows: In the first place the scanty 
flow of urine is a bad symptom; this is changed by the milk diet, 
23 


354 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIXTEEN. 


The ordinary discharge of urine in every twenty-four hours averages 
fifty-two ounces in normal conditions; but under the milk diet it 
changes to upward of one hundred ounces. This causes greater 
activity of the kidneys without burdening them with poisons or other 
irritants. In this excessive activity of these organs the structure is 
cleansed; the purifying being so decided that the results are more 
than what might be called gratifying. The cellular structure as far 
as it is yet intact is repaired, though the old that is lost can never 
be restored. The repairing that is established is, however, very 
effective. 

Then the accumulated poisons are carried off, a result that 
thousands of specialists have sought to accomplish in thousands 
of ways and with almost as many medicines; but nature stepped 
in and showed that there is but one real diuretic. Another ad¬ 
vantage is the rapid decrease of albumin, not relative, but in total 
weight. The milk diet seems to almost stop this loss of blood-life. 
Now there is no leading specialist in America or Europe who does 
not recommend the milk diet in extreme cases; and they recognize 
its healing value in all stages of this malady. 

The chief difficulty is to get the patient to take it. The quan¬ 
tity is very great each day, and depends upon the state of health 
of the invalid. If he is confined to his room or indoors, five to 
seven pints of milk a day is the proper quantity. Seven pints con¬ 
tain 216 grammes of albumin and casein, 172 grammes of fat 
and 161 grammes of carbohydrates. A person in health requires 
137 grammes of albumin, 117 grammes of fat, and 352 grammes 
of carbohydrates. The milk diet is, therefore, deficient in the last- 
named material; but, as that is designed largely for one in health 
and actively engaged in the use of the faculties, the difference is 
not needed in the case of an invalid. 

If the patient, however, should lose weight on the milk diet, 
the deficiency should be supplied by the use of rice thoroughly 
cooked and by raised bread a day old and toasted to a deep brown. 
The rice may be taken dressed with thin cream and sweetened with 
sugar. The toast should be dipped in very hot salted milk and 
eaten in little squares, on account of their better palatability. 
Omit the butter. Brown sugar on hot, dry toast is also useful. 

Where a patient can stand it, the milk should be given at the 
rate of a glassful once an hour from the time of arising until re¬ 
tiring. A half-pint an hour would equal four quarts in a day of 


BRIGHT’S DISEASE. 


355 


sixteen hours; but even if only five pints are given, it will suffice 
if the person is not able to be active. It is better to give it at 
the natural temperature of about 98 degrees when it can be ob¬ 
tained fresh from the cow; otherwise it may be made ice-cold and 
then sipped. Be careful that the mouth is thoroughly rinsed out 
after drinking the milk; as it is of the highest importance to get 
rid of the taste and to prevent coating of the tongue. The rins¬ 
ing is best done by a few mouthfuls of hot water not to be swal¬ 
lowed, followed by several mouthfuls of ice-water not to be swal¬ 
lowed. 

When the milk is being properly digested it tends to constipa¬ 
tion; a condition that may be overcome by the use of prunes at 
about thirty minutes before taking the last glass of the evening. 
The prunes should be stewed and sweetened to taste; and the quan¬ 
tity may be increased daily until relief is had. The use of the 
pulp of a mellow apple is sometimes more effective. 

When the milk is not being properly digested, diarrhoea fol¬ 
lows. This indicates that the quantity is too great; and a reduc¬ 
tion should be had. To avoid the condition it is well not to start 
in with the milk diet too suddenly. 

Now it is well known that no active mature person can live 
always on milk. The bulk of from ten quarts to three gallons 
per day would be required, and this is beyond the possibility of 
any person; although, if it could be borne, the cure would be 
more quickly effected. Recourse must be had to the next best 
articles, and they have already been carefully described; to wit, rice 
long cooked, and old raised bread toasted to a deep brown. Next 
to these are hominy, malted milk, malted breakfast food, and 
koumiss always, if it can be obtained. 

The use of meat presents problems. So many cases of Bright’s 
Disease are traceable to excessive meat-eating, and the poisonous 
effects of meat upon the kidneys are so distinctly traceable that phy¬ 
sicians have come to believe that one of the great causes of the 
malady lies here. Yet there is the Eskimo, who lives on nothing 
but meat and oil, who is not so afflicted. And there is the hunter 
who is free from this disease, even though a meat-eater; except that 
when he settles down to a sedentary life, his kidneys are the first to 
give way. The Eskimo lives in a climate where the excessive cold 
draws all the poisons out through the channels of the lungs and 
skin. He could not survive on such a diet in our climate. 


356 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIXTEEN. 


The best proof of the danger of the excessive use of meat is in 
the change of conditions found by examinations; and these leave no 
doubt of the matter. Yet, when the milk diet yields improvement in 
the health, it is proper to give a very small amount of fresh beef¬ 
steak if there is lack of strength. If this seems to do injury, chicken, 
veal or fish may be substituted. Fish-eaters have never been sub¬ 
ject to this disease, unless addicted to the use of alcohol. 

One thing is true; if the milk diet will not effect a cure, there is 
no hope. If the patient is to get well, two or three months of this 
treatment will give certain evidence. If death is to follow the 
present condition, the only way of prolonging life is by the milk 
diet. 

Some other things have to be done in order to hasten the return 
of health and. ensure its permanent restoration. The use of milk 
as an exclusive, or almost exclusive diet is to be very gradually less¬ 
ened. The most dangerous change that can be taken is that which 
deprives the body of a large amount of fluid daily. Experiments 
have been tried along the line of a vegetable diet as a cure for this 
disease; but, while it overcomes the loss of albumin, it leads rapidly 
to ansemia, and this is to be feared at all times. No change of a line 
of diet should occur suddenly, whether to increase or to abate it. 

Many active persons take into their systems the foods that develop 
the poisons that cause this disease; but by large lung action and pro¬ 
fuse perspiration they keep the waste matter oxidizing and this pre¬ 
vents the formation of uric acid by its complete change to urea. 
When exercise and activity are lacking the urea is not formed, and 
uric acid is thrown upon the kidneys. The other extreme is seen 
when the activity is too great, as in the case of certain athletes; the 
perspiration is so excessive that the fluids of the body pass out, leav¬ 
ing the solids inactive within, and this is dangerous for the kidneys. 
All extremes everywhere are enemies of health ; it is in the middle 
ground that the true path lies. 

Do not compare one case with another as a means of getting cer¬ 
tainty of proof. Cases have been found where the sufferer has 
never indulged in tea, coffee or alcohol, and analysis shows the uric 
deposits clinging to some adulterant used in common foods, while 
other cases show the presence of particles of black pepper, cinnamon, 
ginger, nutmeg, but little altered by the action of attempted diges¬ 
tion; and such cheap mixtures as white earth and clay, which are 
used to adulterate flour, sugar and especially confectionery, have 


BRIGHT’S DISEASE. 


357 


also been inviting causes of the excessive deposits of uric acid. Once 
in the blood, it is no easy matter to get them out, and it is even 
difficult to start them. They cause the excruciating pain around 
the joints and the inflammation that sets in at those places as well 
as through the muscles; and the exudations and changes that occur 
in the structural parts are due to these excitants and irritants, for 
which reason it is sometimes claimed that this malady is not due to 
uric acid deposits, but to inflammation, although the origin was 
foreign matter in the diet. 

Uric acid diseases are increasing at an alarming rate when we 
consider the advance it has made from one generation to another. 
While it is not easy to gather reliable statistics, it is very clear that 
three times as many men and women in the prime of life to-day are 
afflicted with the disease as compared with the preceding generation. 
Doctors are agreed that it is on the increase. We do not charge 
this to any one habit; we do not blame it upon coffee alone, nor 
upon beer alone, nor upon wine alone, nor upon adulterants in food 
altogether; but any of these may be the cause in one case and not in 
another, while some one or more of them must in all cases bear the 
brunt of blame. It is true that a person who is able to avoid all 
foreign matters in the blood for a period of two years would be free 
from the originating cause, and the fight would then be to get rid of 
the accumulations already in the system. This is often as difficult 
as to eliminate mercury when once it has obtained entrance to the 
body and lodged in the joints. 

There is no cure for uric acid except the natural method. If 
there were any other cure that could be found, whether better or 
worse, we would be only too glad to mention it. The malady is so com¬ 
mon and so horrible in its penalties that we would hail any efforts 
of science to fight it, if there were any prospects of success. We are 
positive in our claim that no doctor, no medicine and no treatment 
can effect a cure, except by the direct guidance of nature herself. 
That herein a cure is perfect is positively known; and, like all else 
that nature does, the means are inexpensive. 

Gallons of poisonous drugs are poured down the throat of the 
individual who believes in medicines, but who seeks no more than 
to cure the injury done by the disease without trying to stop the 
cause. Some day, after he has lain in his grave a quarter of a century, 
his grandchild will have sense enough to catch the idea that to wash 
out a parlor through which a sewer is pouring its filth is a good 


358 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SIXTEEN. 


thing only when the sewer has been cut off from the parlor. Suppos¬ 
ing a medicated soap will cleanse the parlor, what is the use of it if 
the sewerage is allowed to flow in again ? 

Therefore we say, in order to deal with uric acid, it is first neces¬ 
sary to stop the continuing cause. Stop taking into the system 
any matter that is foreign to it. Do not think lightly of little 
things; for they accumulate in time, and time is able to accomplish 
much. So slight a thing as arsenic, which now enters into the 
effective drugs that are administered as medicine, may, by adding 
to itself, grow to a fatal quantity; for, once in the system, it is hard 
to get it out. The quack, the traveling drake, the loud-advertising 
charlatan, the puffer of remedies through the pictures and testi¬ 
monials of prominent men and women, as well as the more con¬ 
servative of the respectable physicians, desiring to show quick re¬ 
sults, administer arsenic, mercury and other dangerous drugs, des¬ 
pite all their claims and violent protestations to the contrary. 
Something foreign to the blood is taken into it, and cannot be 
forced out, not even by diuretics. The use of turpentine and other 
things, by congesting the liver, for its epithelium, leads to such 
tendencies as uric acid, Bright’s Disease, gout, gravel, calculus and 
dropsy, as well as rheumatism. 

Past experience and uniform success confirm the method here 
given; and the fact is well established that there need be no failure. 
It has also been proved over and over again, and in numberless in¬ 
stances, that there is no other means of expelling uric acid than the 
one offered by Ralstonism. 

Cease admitting foreign matter into the system, as previously 
stated. 

Never suddenly check the perpsiration. The urea in the blood 
must come out through the pores of the skin, in a large part at 
least. It is a common custom, when the body is heated and the 
perspiration flows freely, to get cooled off as soon as possible by 
sitting in a draft or seeking a chilling atmosphere. This closing 
of the pores produces a kind of paralysis that is dangerous, and 
leads to a future inaction that will not allow the urea to escape 
so easily. It is also a fruitful cause of skin disease and bad 
health. 

Avoid mineral waters, soda waters, ginger ale, and all curative 
waters. Pure water is best; that direct from the springs in the 
country, if not hard, should be preferred. Next to this comes 


BRIGHT’S DISEASE. 


359 


distilled water that has been thoroughly aerated or mixed with pure 
air. 

The copious use of pure spring water, or aerated distilled water, 
in the absence of the exclusive milk diet, will open the pores of the 
skin, and do much toward getting the uric acid out of the blood. 
So hard is it to dissolve that it requires ten thousand times its 
own bulk to absorb it; and as the use of foreign matter daily leads 
to a greater proportionate quantity than the amount of water drank 
can take care of, it is easily seen why the disease does not readily 
yield to treatment. 

Avoid low temperatures, keep overwarm rather than chilled, and 
never allow the discomforts of heat to lead you to seek a draft or 
sudden coldness. 

Get ribbed silk underwear of the thinnest kind and wear next to 
the skin, changing it every morning. In cold weather wear very 
thin woollen underwear over the silk, and change the woollen gar¬ 
ments twice a week. This may involve some expense in getting the 
outfit; but, once obtained, it will last a long time. The cost is 
much less than a week of doctoring. The silk is an excellent non¬ 
conductor of human electricity, serving to hold the vitality of the 
body in the system. Of course, the skin must be kept clean and the 
pores open, if the silk is to he used. 

Avoid' inhaling urea. The custom of sleeping in a room where a 
vessel is uncovered under the bed or in the washstand is far more 
common than would be supposed. Many a case has been traced 
to this habit. It is best to have no possibility of such danger; 
and sometimes the covering of the vessel does not fit close enough 
to keep out the poison. Rooms where children have left the odor 
during the day should never be employed for sleeping purposes. 

Do not tax the vitality by eating the heaviest meal at night. It 
involves a large loss of strength to digest the dinner that is eaten 
late in the day. Our advice is to eat heavily of the most wholesome 
things in the morning, and very lightly at night, with a good meal 
in between at noon. We do not believe a cure is possible with any 
person who cannot find an appetite in the morning because of taking 
the principal meal of the day at evening. Better starve at night to 
feed well in the morning. 

Avoid acid fruits. They do an incalculable injury to the blood. 
The whole fruit question is settled in the Inside Membership Book, 
and we will not take the space for repeating it here. 


360 SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER SIXTEEN. 

To produce urea is a part of the plan of life, but to produce uric 
acid is unnatural and contrary to the purpose of living. The great¬ 
est step of all is this: to prevent the formation of uric acid by com¬ 
pelling the production of urea; and when this is done, all fear may 
be considered as vanquished. The whole battle for a cure must come 
down to this one point, the formation of urea and the prevention of 
uric acid. 

The question whether food will turn into urea or uric acid is 
determined altogether by the habits of life. That the whole battle 
hinges upon this one point may be regarded as settled, for it is 
to-day the opinion of all great specialists that this disease in every 
form is due to the presence of uric acid in the blood. The strange 
fact is that dropsy, gout, kidney troubles, calculus, liver troubles, 
rheumatism and Bright’s Disease may all be related to the presence 
of uric acid, although differing in themselves. Thus one man may 
find calculus or stone in the urinary ducts to be the shape of the 
disease that is assumed after uric acid begins to accumulate, while 
another man may turn to gout, a third to dropsy, a fourth to 
Bright’s Disease, and so on. Yet the treatment that removes the 
tendency to the formation of uric acid cures the one as well as the 
others. 

Our plan now is to directly attack the presence of uric acid in 
the blood, get it out, and at the same time stop its coming in. It 
is true that if it can be totally prevented from coming in, what has 
already accumulated will eventually disappear; but this may be a 
long process, so we will work the two together. Drea is the result 
of living, of the use of the material of the blood and flesh. It 
must be made in order that you may think, feel, act or even carry 
on the functions of the body. There are two kinds of waste always 
forming in the body, and always ready to cause trouble if they are 
not disposed of as soon as possible after being formed. One is the 
waste from the food you eat; this goes out by the intestines. From 
the food eaten certain nutrition is produced and makes blood. 
This circulates all through the body in every part, however small, 
and supplies the system as it changes from food to flesh, etc.; then 
breaks down in the very act of living, for life is change, and change 
is the passing of blood to flesh and flesh to waste. Food-waste is 
the effete matter of the intestines, and its exit is a very simple 
process compared with flesh-waste. All blood first makes flesh, 
and this dies in itself every moment, leaving as its kind of waste 


BRIGHT’S DISEASE. 


361 


what is known as urea, when the change is complete. When there is 
a fault somewhere in the action of the system, uric acid is sure to be 
the result, and its presence is due to one or more of several facts. 

1. When the system is charged with urea that is not thrown off 
as fast as nature intends, the blood-waste and flesh-waste will 
be incomplete, and uric acid will be formed instead of urea. 

2. When foreign matter is in the system, as already stated, it 
cannot make urea, for it is not properly a part of the organic life 
of the body; and the result is uric acid. Read carefully all that has 
been said in this treatise thus far, especially relating to foreign 
mat! er in food and drink. 

3. When proper food is partly consumed in the life-action of 
the body, it does not reach the stage known as urea, but becomes 
uric acid. This is called incomplete or imperfect oxidation of 
waste matter. Oxidation is another term for changing, burning up 
or turning broken-down flesh into urea. 

In getting rid of the causes that invite the formation of uric 
acid, we must depend solely on two processes, the first of which is 
the right way of living, and this has been amply stated in the entire 
scope of this treatise. The second is to act under the phases just 
stated. Let us see why the urea that crowds the system and pre¬ 
vents the formation of other urea instead of uric acid, is not thrown 
off as fast as produced, and why the blood-waste and flesh-waste 
are imperfectly oxidized. This means really to unload the accumu¬ 
lated urea, in order that the accumulated uric acid may be dis¬ 
solved in urea. There are three ways of unloading urea, one by the 
kidneys, the second by the skin, the third by the lungs. The first 
has been so much depended on by doctors that all treatments have 
employed diuretics, of which turpentine has been the most active 
and the most dangerous. Great excitement of the kidneys will 
break down its walls, and this is Bright’s Disease. Then there have 
been medicines given almost without limit for the perspiration. 
The leading treatments of to-day are for dissolving the uric acid 
crystals with very little attention to the skin and kidneys, while 
others use baths, mineral waters, and other things; and all agree 
that the diet is all-important. 

A gluten diet is the best for this purpose. 

Add to this method the full use of the lungs by deep respirations, 
inward and outward, with long continued trials of the exercise, 
and you have a very valuable aid to the foregoing treatment. 


362 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SITXEEN. 


The cure of rheumatism is along some of these lines, and you will 
find that treatment very helpful, especially as it is at hand in the 
present volume. The causes are similar, not only in these two 
great maladies, but in many others as well. 

As this disease can be prevented much more easily than it can be 
cured, it is wise to make use of this as a preventive treatment, tak¬ 
ing advantage of whatever time you have yet in your possession be¬ 
fore the kidneys are diseased beyond help. Rheumatism is curable, 
and the delay in that malady does not bring on results that are 
fatal; while the present disease, originating largely in the same 
abuse of nature’s laws, is one of the severest penalties in the life of 
man. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER IT 



THE SIXTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

This malady is caused by a taint in the blood, the development 
of which is slow or rapid in proportion as some exciting influence 
may or may not be present. A vigorous vitality, a non-meat diet 
and great care of the skin will hold the taint in check until the in¬ 
dividual dies of extreme old age. Unclean skin that is irritated may 
quickly excite forth the latent or dormant disease. So will an excess 
of meat in the daily diet, for the kidneys are overtaxed and cannot 
remove all the poisons from the blood. It is quite likely that the 
eating of eggs laid by hens that have fed on animal life, such as 
worms and insects, is the most fruitful cause that excites the devel¬ 
opment of cancer; not the originator of the cancer itself. The point 
we make is that the malady should be kept dormant. Once let it 
come into open life in the system, and it is well nigh impossible to 
conquer it. The surgical operation of cutting it out, when per¬ 
formed in the early stages, succeeds in about twelve cases in a 
hundred. No living person can guarantee a cure in the present stage 
of science. 

Many erroneous notions are prevalent as to the nature of the 
cancer. While there are many kinds, they are all based upon the 
one principle of perverted fibrous tissue growth. The impulse for 

(363) 



364 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 

this growth is present in the blood, and needs only a weak condition 
of the flesh in order to be called into action. A blow upon the 
breast has often started a cancer that proved fatal. So a bruise or 
wound upon any part of the body has given rise to the cancer. The 
probability is that the taint in the blood has awaited just this irritat¬ 
ing cause, and has taken advantage of the maimed and perverted 
condition of the tissue where the hurt has occurred, so that the 
cancer cells may begin their own colony. 

As far as outward precautions are concerned it is important that 
the surface of the body be kept in the cleanest possible condition, and 
that there be no irritation at any part of the skin, or at any mem¬ 
brane, as in the mouth or throat. 

If the taint is inherited, greater care is necessary; the diet must 
be wholly vegetable; and there must be no exhaustion of the vitality. 
Continence in marriage, early hours at night, plenty of fresh air, 
sunlight, and steady occupation for the mind and body are the re¬ 
quirements. 

It is probable that the eating of meat that is tained is the cause of 
cancer when not inherited in the blood, and meat of this character 
is also the exciting cause of the constitutional form of the malady. 
Meat may be tainted by improper killing, or by being taken from 
animals that have died a natural death, or by coming from flesh 
that has been fed on animal life. Tainted meat does not mean 
merely that which has begun to spoil. 

The most deadly of all poisons and the most certain is the blood or 
tissue of dead flesh. If you have a scratch, however small or slight, 
and the least particle of dead meat or dead blood touches you at the 
place of the abrasion, the taint will take full possession of your 
whole body, causing death by poisoning. It is this contact with 
dead bodies that surgeons dread most of all. It seems strange that 
from so small a beginning the entire life becomes the victim. 

The reason for it is that nature places her severest penalty on 
dead meat. 

The beef packers in any part of the world, in America as well as 
elsewhere, pay no attention to the condition of their animals. If 
one is sick, it is killed and eaten by the public. If one is found dead 
it is treated so as to be cut up for food. If one is stricken by a 
malignant disease, as by the filthy anthrax or by tuberculosis, it is 
sold as meat to the public, and no one is the wiser for -it. Such meat 
is one of the causes of the taint in the blood that brings on cancer. 


CANCER. 


365 


Farmers never hesitate to sell their dead fowls; they dress them 
and take them to market, regardless of the manner of their death. 
Here is a farmer with a hundred hens, all of which have the roup; 
he sees that they are useless to him, and they are all killed and 
dressed for the market. Or he finds a nest of eggs in the field, not 
knowing how old they are; and they too go to market with their 
animal taint. There are millions of eggs sold every month in this 
country that have done service under incubators or under hens and 
that have failed to hatch; they have weak yolks, but stand the 
grocers’ test and are therefore sold to the people. Here is one of the 
causes of the cancer taint. 

Milk from sick cows, from cows that are unfit to live, from cows 
that are actually diseased, finds its way into the homes of the public, 
and the taint of cancer is thus transmitted to the consumers of it. 

It is more than probable that the eating of flesh that has fed on 
animal life is punished by the taint that brings on cancer. The calf 
that has been fed from the milk of its mother is a direct poison as 
veal; for the milk it has eaten is all animal in its nature, although 
less injurious than the flesh itself would be. 

Hens lay eggs that are the product of flesh-eating life when the 
hens are allowed to feed on worms, insects and meat, and as such, 
they are injurious to the extent of their use. They cannot well be 
omitted in cooking, so we must seek the proper remedy. The meat 
of hens and chickens is more injurious than the eggs, if the fowls 
have had such food as we have stated. The body of a chicken com¬ 
pletely rebuilds itself in a few weeks. To give it all needed vitality 
and growth, it is proper to allow it to run at will for animal life in 
the garden and lawn; then, if it is to be used for the market or table, 
place it in a yard where it may scratch freely and find a grain diet; 
wheat, ground oats, ground corn, buckwheat, bran, cut grass, clover 
and other things being given it for variety, sometimes hidden under 
straw to keep it active and healthy. A week or two before killing, 
it should be cooped and fed with greater care. This is the practice 
among most fowl raisers, except for the abominable habit of giving 
meat to add flavor and tenderness. 

The meat and eggs of hens that are allowed to run at large, fol¬ 
lowing cattle, hogs and horses, and to get their own living except 
for a little com that is thrown to them daily, cannot be safely used. 
This is an age of poor blood, pimply skin and deficient vitality. 
These misfortunes are due more to the unfitness of the food that is 


366 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 

eaten than to all other causes combined. It is the duty of good 
citizens to take steps to secure wholesome foods for themselves and 
their fellow-beings; this duty is the highest and the most sacred in 
life, for the body is the temple of mind and soul, having a control¬ 
ling influence over them both. Ill health causes irritability, from 
which wickedness, sins and crimes arise unrestrained. A low vi¬ 
tality produces indifference to everything. This is an age of low 
vitality, because the foods were never so bad and never so adulterated 
as now. 

See the opening remarks of this book. 

Pork is not safe as at present marketed. The danger in all meat 
foods is in the flesh part, if there is danger at all, and not in the fat. 
Physicians recommend the use of pork fat to assist in restoring the 
equilibrium of the nervous system, on account of its vitalized car¬ 
bon, and the fat of boiled ham has been instrumental in effecting a 
temporary cure of neuralgia. To that extent it is useful. There 
are three or four sides to the pork question, and the following little 
rules are valuable in enabling you to come to a decision: 

1. If no pork were eaten at all, the health would be better for it. 

2. If pork is to be eaten, a committee of your locality should see 
that the animals are grain fed and kept clean to avoid taking filth 
into their stomachs, which seems to be the only discernible ambition 
of the hog. 

3. If any part of pork is to be preferred, the fat as bacon and 
brine pork, in the form of fat rind cuts, are the best. 

4. Suckling pigs are more injurious than young veal, against 
which some States have legislated. 

5. Lard as pure fat has none of the hog or pork qualities, and is 
no more injurious than butter. 

6. A person reflects the nature of the food out of which the body 
is built. One who eats pork freely, or as a considerable part of the 
meat diet, is swinish, hoggish, lazy and filthy in body, mind, habits 
and morals; and we are glad to state that this condition is not so 
widely extended as in former times. 

7. Clean meats from clean animals, as lamb and beef, tend to 
make clean bodies. Lean pork never can, even under the best cul¬ 
ture ; for the taint of ancestry, the natural habits of the animal and 
the semi-rotten nature of the flesh, not only inspired the curse of 
God against it, but will always repulse the good judgment of think¬ 
ing men and women. 


CANCER. 


367 


Food that has life in it should be eaten; not living animal life, 
but what is called life-giving substance. 

Dead food is hurtful and fills the system with toxins and from 
these come the pabula on which cancer feeds. 

Excess of cooking is responsible for making much dead food. 
This fault is prevalent everywhere, and not only ruins the good 
things of life but adds very much to the cost of living. 

Take a piece of meat as an example. Its whole value is in the 
juice and juicy-matter clinging to its fiber. A quick action of 
heat coagulates both this juice and its juicy-matter; and thus the 
only value in the meat has gone to waste. Coagulation hardens 
and toughens the meat. It is a provision of nature that is useful 
in cooking, when only the surface is coagulated, for it serves as a 
covering which holds the juice within the meat. 

The coagulated surface of meat is indigestible, and should not 
be eaten. The more crisp it is, the more injury it does. Proof 
of this may be obtained very easily by any person. Let crisp sur¬ 
faces of meat be eaten in place of all other meat, but with the usual 
food, and very soon the stomach will be out of order, the liver 
affected, and the kidneys weakened. The face will show slight 
jaundice. How change the meat so that the surface is not eaten, 
and allowing only the inner portion to enter the stomach. There 
will be none of the symptoms referred to. 

The palate relishes the crisp surfaces. 

The crisp part is both dead and obstructive to digestion. 

Food that is dead may or may not be obstructive to digestion; 
some dead foods are, and others are not thus injurious. Many 
things are taken into the system daily that are dead food, yet pass 
on and go out with no harm that is directly noticeable. Nearly all 
the foods that are not classed as pab or plasm are dead. 

Such things as soggy potatoes, old potatoes that have given out 
sprouts, new potatoes that are too gummy to be mealy, pearl tapioca, 
green corn, roasted peanuts, and scores of other articles, are exam¬ 
ples of dead food that may not obstruct the system so as to cause 
indigestion, yet are sure to fill the system with deat and toxins. 
They are of no use whatever. They cannot make blood, and con¬ 
sequently will not make health. If there is any way of getting 
health without making blood, it has never been discovered. 

Such a food as pearl tapioca has been on the market for years 
and is in use everywhere, yet people would starve on it if they had 


368 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 

nothing else to eat; while potatoes, from which it is made, would 
support life indefinitely if they were properly cooked. 

The best potatoes may be made dead by a wrong method of cook¬ 
ing; for soggy potatoes are the result of the way they are cooked. 
There is a possibility of making the same potatoes either mealy or 
soggy. 

But in all cases where there is a tendency to cancer, or where the 
affliction is feared, we recommend that all animal food be omitted. 
This will exclude all meats of every kind, all milk, all cream, all 
eggs, cheese, fowl and fish. The least hurtful is butter; and also 
fat meat, provided no tissue is swallowed. Next comes fresh fish, 
if the tissue or fiber is not allowed to enter the stomach. It is not 
likely that butter is injurious, for it is not in any way a part of the 
taint of the animal life from which it is produced; but it may be 
omitted by one who wishes to be on the safe side. 

In all other respects you may adopt the diet of high regime in 
your book of Inside Membership. The possibility of cancer will 
then become so slight as to be practically out of the question. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special •Treatment 


NUMBER 18 



THE SEVENTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

The word diabetes means an excessive flow. The full medical 
name of this malady is diabetes mellitus, the latter word coming 
from the Greek of meli, meaning honey. The symptoms are as 
follows: Great quantities of sugar in the urine, hunger, con¬ 
stant thirst, and a wasting away of the flesh. If not relieved the 
disease tends toward death, which occurs in from two to four 
years. 

The common symptom is the presence of grape sugar, or glu¬ 
cose, in the urine, and this may be chronic or only temporary. It 
is almost always attended by an excessive flow of urine, but there 
have been cases where the latter has been normal in flow, but 
concentrated in its glucose formation. On the other hand 
there is a class of cases consisting of excessive discharges of 
water with no trace of sugar. To this the name of diabetes in¬ 
sipidus, or polyuria, is given. The malady proper, which is 
popularly called diabetes, is the mellitus form, and is the most 
dangerous as well as the most difficult of cure. To-day, after 
about a hundred years of study, the medical profession are able 
to say but very little upon the subject of what is a somewhat 
common disease; and that little is summed up as follows: 

24 (369) 





370 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHTEEN. 


1. Under the best modern treatment about fifty per cent, of the 
patients have died in from two to four years; others have been 
benefited, and still others have been cured. 

2. The cause or origin of the disease is not known. 

3. Artificial diabetes is caused in animals by diet alone. In 
human beings the chief source of relief has come from attention 
to the diet. There is no reputable specialist who pretends that 
medicine is of any value in this malady. It is one of the very few 
that are classed among the cases that are treated almost solely by 
dieting. There is no doubt that artificial diabetes might be caused 
in a human being, as it is in an animal, by suiting the diet to its 
nature. 

4. Diabetes mellitus is not a disease of the kidneys as some¬ 
times thought; although those organs are made to do more work. 
It is attended by abnormal conditions in the liver, where gtycogen, 
a substance closely allied to grape sugar, is always present, and 
later on this turns to sugar, but when or how is not known. 

5. It is certain that sugar is present in the blood, but not in 
the urine, in a healthy body; nor is it present in any of the ex¬ 
cretions. 

6. These facts point conclusively to but one result; namely, 
that the sugar is destroyed between the period of its presence in 
the blood and the excreting of waste material from the body. 

7. Sugar, no matter how it enters the body or from what 
class of food it may come, is a wholesome article of nutrition 
when properly taken and combined with other kinds of food. It 
supplies brain, nerve, organic and muscular energy as no other 
article can do; besides furnishing heat to the body. In excess it is 
a poison to the liver. 

8. When the sugars, starches or other sweets enter the blood 
in greater quantities than they are consumed or chemically burned 
out, there is an accumulation of them, and this is thrown off by 
the kidneys. But this may occur in the case of any person and 
not constitute a disease, and it does so occur thousands of times in 
the lives of individuals who eat candies, sweets, sugars or starches 
to excess. 

9. The real disease of diabetes mellitus is attended by the 
formation of sugar in the system. This formation deprives the 
body of nutrition required to support growth and action. The 
food is wasted in sugar that is not burned out in the expression 


diabetes. 


371 


of life, but that passes out unused in the urine. Vitality is lack¬ 
ing, and emaciation ensues. 

10. The foregoing facts lead to the inquiry as to whether the 
practice of withdrawing all sugar and starches from the diet is 
not wrong. If the malady deprives the body of these needed 
foods, so that emaciation follows, why is it not wise to supply 
them to the body in order to check the loss of its flesh? 

It is known that diabetes is not a kidney disorder; it is sup¬ 
posed by some that it is a liver disorder; but there are more facts 
to show that it is a nervous disease. Digestion is a purely nerv¬ 
ous process, and is accelerated or retarded by the character of the 
nervous impressions at the time of eating, as by joy or sorrow. 

But there are other reasons. Mental excitement may produce 
diabetes mellitus. Worry may produce it. Study, under trying 
and annoying circumstances, may produce it. Physical injury to 
the brain may produce it. Exhaustion, wearing work, late hours, 
loss of sleep, a youth of excesses that tax the nervous life, and 
mental disease in general, may produce it. What is called a long 
continued strain, or period of anxiety, may give rise to it. Post¬ 
mortems have shown lesions in the brain and spinal cord. The 
liver and pancreas are directly affected, their conditions being 
exceedingly abnormal. The hereditary tendencies are peculiar. 
A parent who is an imbecile may be followed by a diabetic in the 
next generation. An epileptic may be so followed. A diabetic 
may be followed by an imbecile or epileptic son or daughter. And 
where these results are not fully found, the tendencies toward 
them are generally met. 

It is probably true that the excessive use of sugar and sweets 
will lead to diabetes only in cases of a hereditary tendency to the 
malady. Di. Seegen asserts that the Jews suffer more frequently 
than any other people from this disease. Statistics generally show 
that of all cases, seventy-five per cent, are of men, and they are 
subject to it within the ages of twenty to forty-five. It rarely 
originates after the latter age, though occasionally prior to twenty; 
yet there are instances of the disease appearing at almost every 
age from infancy to the other extreme. A physician who was told 
that he had a diabetic patient awaiting him in his office would 
expect to find a male adult between twenty and forty-five. 

He would find the disease well established, for it comes on 
quietly and gives no warning. Probably the alarming symptoms 


372 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHTEEN. 


are great thirst, constant hunger, and no growth or good from 
the food. The health seems to fail under a voracious appetite. 
A gallon or more of urine is passed daily, of light color and 
sweetish odor. The skin is dry and harsh, the tongue is red and 
glazed or slightly furred, the mucus of the mouth is thick and 
‘ sticky, the bowels are constipated and the face is haggard. Sexual 
power is entirely gone, and, in the male, the testes are shrunken 
in most cases to nothingness. The temperature of the body is 
below the normal until near the end when it rises. Death comes 
suddenly by diabetic pneumonia; or gradually by coma. Sleep 
comes over the faculties, and it is difficult to keep the body awake 
and active. The usual end, however, is by lung trouble. Pneu¬ 
monia develops without warning and ends life swiftly. 

In estimating the value of any treatment, certain leading facts 
must be taken as guides: 

1. Temporary diabetes, called glycosuria, may be induced by 
indulgence to excess in sugar, candies, sweets, starchy food, aspara¬ 
gus, new wines or glucose; but it is improbable that any permanent 
case may arise from such excess unless there is a predisposition to 
the malady. 

2. Such predisposition may appear in connection with uric acid 
tendency, gouty tendency, brain injury, mental exhaustion and 
nervous disease. One-third of all cases of diabetes are associated 
with alcoholism. One-third are also associated with gouty tenden¬ 
cies. In most cases they are preceded by the appearance of uric 
acid in quantities in the urine, and by neuralgia in one or more 
parts of the body. 

3. Sugars, sweets, starches, etc., that are charged with the cause 
of diabetes, are not in reality the cause of it, but are passed out of 
the system without having performed their duty. It is this fail are 
to perform their duty that constitutes diabetes; and, even when 
patients omit the eating of all sugar, sweets, starches, etc., they go 
on producing sugar in the urine, for the amount of such sugar 
found in the urine is more than that in the blood can account for. 

4. One duty of the liver is to retain sugar and to give it out to 
the system as needed for oxidizing in the maintenance of life; and 
it is now supposed that a deranged nervous action causes the liver 
to give the sugar to the urine instead of passing it into the blood. 
This would deprive the system of its needed food, the vitality 
would run low, the temperature of the body would fall, the nerves 


diabetes. 


373 


would weaken, the brain become sleepy, and the creation of the red 
corpuscles would be lessened so that oxygen would not be abundant 
enough for oxidizing the sugar, and thus the disease would increase 
upon itself. 

5. To show how readily the liver responds to the nervous condi¬ 
tions, the presence of tapeworm has caused diabetes, and in the fol¬ 
lowing manner: In the medulla oblongata, or third brain, which 
controls the liver, the intestines, the stomach, lungs, heart, etc., 
there is what is called a nerve centre. The tapeworm in the intes¬ 
tines irritates the sympathetic nerve fibres that communicate with 
the medulla, and this irritation is reflected from the medulla to 
the vasomotor system of the liver, causing the impairment of that 
organ in its duty of holding the sugar for use in the system. 
In this process we get the latest and most accepted theory of the 
real cause of diabetes. 

6. All recent attempts to cure the malady coincide with the 
theory just stated. Whatever calls the sugar from the liver into 
the life of the body and away from the kidneys, tends to lessen 
the disease. 

7. Assuming the diet to be the best, as we shall soon see, there 
are two leading principles involved in the proper treatment of 
diabetes: 

u. Increase of muscular activity draws the sugar from the liver 
to the general body and lessens its escape in the urine. Dr. Kulz 
and other specialists have found by repeated analysis upon many 
diabetic patients that the sugar diminishes in the discharges in 
proportion as the body is muscularly active. 

b. Oxidizing of the sugar is increased by exercises that introduce 
a greater amount of oxygen into the system. This is best done by 
certain breathing movements out of doors. Indoor life and in¬ 
dolent habits are sure to hasten the disease to its incurable stage, 
while outdoor life and constant activity accompanied by the exces¬ 
sive practice of deep breathing will do more than all else to fight 
down the malady. 


WHAT TO DO. 

A. Read carefully all that has been thus far said in this treatise. 

It is necessary to understand the nature of the disease as far as 

possible. 


374 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHTEEN. 

B. Avoid all mental excitement, all worry, all anxiety, all taxing 
of the brain, as herein the disease gets its start. 

C. Exercise gently and heartily six or seven hours daily. 

D. Practice deep breathing. In this disease of diabetes the cause 
of death is in reality the lack of red disks in the blood. Oxygen 
is the chief part of the body, and the chief part of all food, yet it 
is best obtained from the air. To make the red disks the purpose 
is to drink oxygen in air-form; and nitrogen as well. The two are 
needed by the body more than any other of the elements. Nothing 
that the stomach can contain is as valuable as a full drink of 
oxygen and nitrogen, taken in deep draughts of air. The blood 
is quickly made if there is other food to meet it; red disks are 
quickly formed; the skin shows immediate improvement; color 
comes into the face; the heart is more vital; digestion improves 
as if by magic; and everything seems buoyant and full of pleasure. 

The way to drink oxygen and nitrogen is to take a gentle breath 
easily, and let it flow out again as quietly as possible; no effort, 
no hurry, no strain, no checking of respiration being necessary. 
Get out in the pure air and take a drink, then another, then a 
third, and so keep on from time to time until you have secured a 
hundred or so; but do not make yourself weary. If you find that 
you are able to pull in a deeper breath than usual, you may know 
that this is a sign that you are to get well. Progress toward health 
is marked by progress in deepening the respirations; and, until the 
latter can be accomplished, you will have no hope, and you may 
up to that time consider yourself incurable. There is no other 
way known to science, to doctors, to medicines or to nature, of 
getting red disks in the blood; there never was any other way, and 
there never will be. We have seen three days of progressive 
breathing of fresh outdoor air change dark, purple lips to a health¬ 
ful red; and this is a clear indication of what is going on in the 
blood-system within. 

When walking take a frequent drink of pure air, getting a 
very little deeper each time. It does no good to go suddenly to an 
unusual depth. Time is lost in that way. The deepening must 
be progressive, little by little. Persons who go to quick extremes 
never accomplish much, and always retard things. When riding 
or driving, do not sit idily; but take a drink of pure air now and 
then. Driving, or riding in a carriage, is but little better than 
idling indoors, unless you can employ the lungs in the way we have 


diabetes. 


375 


said. If you are seated on a piazza, or in the open air anywhere, 
take frequent drinks of pure air; always trying to deepen the res¬ 
pirations one by one. Never commence deeply. It is the gradual 
increase that accomplishes good. If you are exercising or playing 
out of doors, be sure to use the air. Most laborers use but little 
air; and they thus fail to get full value from their outdoor life; 
yet what air they get would do them worlds of good if they had 
proper food to eat. They keep their blood bad by an abominable 
diet. The foregoing methods of obtaining food in the form of 
oxygen and nitrogen from the air, must be adopted regularly. It 
is true that the more hours a day you give to such drinking, the 
sooner you will note a change for the better, if other directions 
are followed. 

Do not rest much indoors, unless you are lying down. Keep 
quietly and gently active. Avoid all kinds of reading, hard think¬ 
ing and talking, as long as the vitality is very low, for such things 
keep you weak. Conversation, if earnest and rapid, will make 
you very nervous and tired. It takes much strength to talk to 
others; and very little air gets into the lungs. Do not sit up late 
at night. Do not practice excesses. 

E. The diet will depend on the complications attending dia¬ 
betes. Nearly all recent systems of dieting seek to avoid all foods 
that produce sugar in the liver. It is a serious question whether 
this denial of vitalizing foods is not the cause of so much fatality 
in the malady. The very life of the body is dependent upon sugar, 
sweets, starches and carbons taken in proper proportions; and 
if denied in a disease the chief action of which is to rob the system 
of these very necessities, why should death not be invited by this 
double loss? 

All diabetics overeat, and a restriction in their diet always 
brings improvement. White bread is most desired by a patient. 
Bread from white flour increases the malady; but when made 
from whole, hard, winter wheat, rich in gluten, if subjected to 
long baking, and eaten when over a day old, it is very helpful. 

Diabetic foods are everywhere advertised; but those that claim 
the most are often the most dangerous. Physicians, chemists 
and specialists are familiar with the products, as a rule, and 
they place more confidence in the Pure Gluten Company of New 
York City, whose bread flour and breakfast food are most whole¬ 
some for diabetics. 


376 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHTEEN. 

The most recent product of the company referred to is called 
Gum Gluten. It is much better than gluten flour, or the gluten 
that is for sale at drug stores or elsewhere. The latter costs one 
dollar a pound and makes a bread that is harder to chew than a 
rubber chew. Indeed the chief good that comes from it is to 
strengthen the jaw muscles. Avoid that altogether. The price 
is excessive and unnecessary. The Gum Gluten is sold for four¬ 
teen cents a pound, and produces a variety of articles that are all 
pleasing. 

It is not possible to observe the rules of regime in the cure of 
diabetes. The disease is so hard to overcome in any event that it 
would be folly to deal with it as if it were based upon the same con¬ 
ditions as other maladies. The diabetic patient is allowed to have 
his own way in breaking the other rules of health if he abides by the 
more limited restrictions of this treatment. 

SPECIAL PRECAUTIONS. 

A. Avoid a tendency to sleep more than eight hours a day. The 
coma that attends this malady at times must be looked for and 
fought off. For this reason it is necessary to have a certain hour 
for retiring at night, and a certain hour for getting up in the 
morning. No exception should be made to this. One evening 
party or one call out of the house, or one visit to some place of 
amusement, may undo all the good that has been achieved by the 
best treatment. The time most favorable for retiring is between 
half-past nine and ten; and for rising, is between half-past five 
and six. There is no harm in being in bed eight and one-half 
hours, or even nine if the patient is aged, for it takes time to get 
to sleep and to wake up. Prompt jumping out of bed is ad¬ 
visable, as it cuts off the drowsy habit that is so injurious to dia¬ 
betics. The early hours of the day for waking, and the early 
hours of the evening for retiring, are helpful. They soothe the 
nervous system, and this is directly advantageous. 

B. Avoid the habit of rest. The rest cure is not designed for dia¬ 
betes. The muscles should have all the activity they can get, 
provided it is gentle. Straining and hard exercise, as well as 
hard work, will take away too much of the vitality. The patients 
need vitality, but not rest. A life of physical activity must be 
planned and carried into execution. More than this every part 
of the body must be given the benefit of this action of the muscles. 


diabetes. 


3“7 

Passive massage is good, after the plan given in the treatment for 
rheumatism in this book. But that is not enough. For the cure 
of diabetes, the day from early morning until about time to retire 
at night, should be devoted to action of the muscles rather than of 
the mind. 

Six or seven hours may be enough, and in most cases will be 
about what is needed for physical activity, varied in a hundred or 
more short intervals with rest, such as sitting for a minute or 
reclining for a short while, especially for about five minutes before 
each meal; but the more time you put into genuine physical activity 
such as work and play and exercise, all of the gentlest nature, the 
more of the nutrition of the food you will distribute throughout 
the body, and the less will be turned to sugar. 

Most diabetics love to rest. 

This tendency should be fought down. On the other hand it 
is unwise to indulge in physical activity too long at anv one time. 
If weariness ensues after five minutes, rest a minute. Avoid 
getting too tired. It does not produce the best results. 

We advocate even longer periods of activity than those stated, 
and we believe that ten or twelve hours a day in such practice 
is not too much, provided the case turns out to be an obstinate 
one. There are hundreds of little things that can be done that 
will call you on your feet and require you to use your hands and 
general body; make a plan of the day, and keep a record of the 
actual time you devote to such activity, and see how many total 
hours in the month you can put into this part of the cure. 

WHAT TO AVOID HST EATING. 

The diabetic is allowed an entirely different diet from any other 
patient. The food must be peculiar to the case. Certain things 
should be avoided, and these we will first state: 

Sugars, sweets of all kinds and candies. 

Pastry, cake, puddings and all similar foods. 

Rich gravies and dressings, sauces, etc. 

Honey is specially injurious. 

Jams, preserves, jellies and everything made with them. 

Starchy foods, including rice, wheat white flour, sago, tapioca, 
arrowroot, oatmeal, commeal, hominy, vermicelli, spagetti, maca^ 


378 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHTEEN. 


roni, barley, buckwheat, samp, semolina and all foods made by their 
use or in conjunction with the same. 

Potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, peas, green or ripe, beans, 
green or ripe, broccoli, sprouts, lentils, rhubarb, asparagus, cab¬ 
bage, cauliflower, onions, leeks, sauerkraut, coleslaw, egg plant 
and artichokes. 

There is a claim that asparagus is specially hurtful. This is 
not fully established as a fact, but it is well not to eat it. 

The soft parts of' oysters, clams and mussels. 

Liver of all animals is hurtful. 

Sweet fruits of all kinds, such as dates, prunes, figs, plums, 
apricots, bananas, pears of the sugary kind, raisins, currants and 
citron. 

Peanuts are exceedingly harmful. Even a person in perfect 
health will do injury to the liver by their use. 

Chestnuts are also forbidden. 

WHAT MAY BE EATEN IN DIABETES. 

The following articles of food are allowable. From the list you 
may select what you have a preference for and let the others go. 

GUM GLUTEN. The inventors of this process have certainly 
done the world a great service. The products recommended in 

their lists are all permitted in a case of diabetes. The price is 

fourteen cents a pound, as compared with a dollar a pound for 
what is of no value at all in effecting a cure. 

Meats of all kinds. The fresh meats are preferred, as those that 

are salted are likely to provoke thirst, and it is not wise to do 
this. Viscera of animals are not good, except sweetbreads. 

Ham, bacon, tongue and smoked beef. 

Soups, broths, extracts of meat and similar foods, including 
stews and purees, if the contents are not otherwise forbidden. 

Eggs are excellent in any form. 

Fish, if fresh, may be used in any way, and all kinds are useful. 

Lobsters, oysters in the hard part, shrimp, crabs, clams in the 
hard part, and stews or other dishes prepared from any of these 
may be used, provided other ingredients are not present that are 
forbidden. 

Fat meat is very serviceable; and all fats, such as olive oil, 
bacon, bone marrow, butter, cream, and cod-liver oil are useful; 


diabetes. 


379 


but some systems do not digest or assimilate them, and it is well 
to give them in moderation at first. One of the best fats comes 
from bacon lightly fried and chewed, but not swallowed. One 
teaspoonful each day of alive oil may be taken. The fat of ham 
is also good. Most persons who have diabetes are better able to 
digest fat than before. 

Vegetables that do not originate sugar are allowed; and the 
best are: beet tops, dandelions, lettuce, endives, radishes, spinach, 
cress, celery, sea-kale, cucumbers, pickles, string beans that have 
small beans in them, or none at all and sorrels. 

Fruits that have pits are generally considered safe; such as 
peaches, cherries, plums not cooked or preserved; but apricots 
are not good. Sweet apples are forbidden, but all others are al¬ 
lowed if they are mellow. They should be eaten sparingly. 
Cooked apples are not allowed. If taken at all they should he 
raw, ripe and very mellow, not hard. They may cause neuralgia, 
and this should be avoided. 

Sour oranges that are dead ripe, lemons, olives, strawberries, 
and sour fruits, all in moderation, are allowed. 

Nuts, such as almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, filberts and pecans 
are allowed. But peanuts and chestnuts are forbidden. 

Many patients are not so easily harmed as others by some one 
article of food. The lists we have given are the safest guides. 

Cheese, milk, cream and milk products are generally good; but 
there is a divergence of opinion on this subject. There are experts 
who effect cures by the milk diet, and others who have employed 
the skim milk regime with satisfactory results. Buttermilk is 
not harmful. Ice-cold skimmed milk or ice-cold buttermilk may be 
taken as a beverage if sipped very slowly. They allay the intense 
thirst. 

Little lumps of cracked ice may be held in the mouth to give 
relief from thirst. 

All alcohol should be prohibited. Beer, wines and cider, as well 
as every beverage that is not allowed in the foregoing lists should 
be omitted. Alcohol is particularly hard on the liver, which is 
the seat of the malady. 

Sweetened water, or summer drinks, cold water, charged water 
of every kind, and cocoa, chocolate and tea are to be omitted. 
Coffee in moderation, and chicory, neither being sweetened, are 
allowed. 


380 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER EIGHTEEN. 


From the foregoing list it is possible to select more than enough 
to furnish a variety that will please the patient, and at the same 
time lead to a cure. 

Our advice has been followed in the treatment of this malady, 
not only by laymen but also by physicians. It is agreed by all that 
medicines can do no good. Nor can a cure be looked for in a ma¬ 
jority of cases. Diabetes sometimes defies all efforts to save life, 
as does Bright’s Disease when well advanced. In closing this treat¬ 
ment we would make the following final suggestions: 

1. Keep all the muscles of the body very active as frequently and 
as long as possible, avoiding taxing exertions. 

2. Keep the skin and capillary engines active by giving them 
several hard exercises each day. This is done by anything that will 
excite the skin and its under surfaces. The best system is given in 
the last few pages of the eleventh treatment, and the movements 
are illustrated there. 

3. To avoid chilliness make a jacket for the chest and shoulders 
of oiled silk into which cotton has been sewed and quilted for the 
thickness of half an inch; then place this on the patient and do 
not take it off until it falls to pieces. Then replace it by a new one. 
The skin of the chest, shoulders and back should be bathed before 
each jacket is put on. One lasts about two weeks. This is often 
enough to bathe these parts of the body; but the lower torso, the 
hips, legs and feet ought to be bathed once every night by hot water 
followed by rinsing in cool water and a quick drying with hot 
towels; all just before going to bed. 

4. Avoid baking powder and its products. 

5. Soups made of marrow are very nourishing and should be had 
daily. Cook marrow bones that are sweet. 

6. Make use of roasted but not burned almonds. They may be 
eaten in any form and as much as will be desired at a time, pro¬ 
vided they are chewed for a long time and not swallowed in the 
form of coarse meal. 

7. When the patient seems to be failing in spite of any treatment 
it is better to stop all water and give skimmed milk instead, using it 
in sips to quench all thirst, and not limiting its use. 

8. The principle of constant activity for twelve or fourteen hours 
each day is very valuable, as it draws the nutrition from the blood 
into the tissue-structure of the body and prevents the food from be¬ 
ing transformed into sugar as readily as it would otherwise do, 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 13 



THE EIGHTH OP THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

As announced in our book of Inside Membership we do not 
propose a cure for dropsy. But we wish to show the course to be 
taken to prevent it, and at the same time to prevent further in¬ 
crease. This will be of help to the physician who seeks to effect 
a cure or to give relief, for the removal of the continuing cause 
will afford the best aid to a cure. 

Dropsy is due to the paralysis of the cellular tissue, thus per¬ 
mitting the water from the blood to escape and fill either the 
cells under the skin or the serous cavities of the body. The blood is 
about nine-tenths water. It flows all through the body and should 
leave its water and poisons at the kidneys or the pores of the 
skin, or in the lungs; for water escapes from the body in all three 
of these ways. 

It is therefore found that the more active the skin is, and the 
less it is neglected, the more readily it will take away the water that 
should escape from the blood to make way for that which is drank 
from day to day. The whole method of increasing the action of 
the skin is fully presented in the treatment for rheumatism in this 
volume. The two maladies have the same origin in the first steps. 

(381) 




382 SPECIAL, TREATMENT NUMBER NINETEEN. 

In the same treatment will be found the best way of protecting 
the kidneys, and also of using the lungs. All three of these 
methods will be needed in preventing dropsy. 

Albuminuria is either the direct cause of the paralysis of the 
cells, or else is associated with the condition. So is any form of 
kidney disease. The latter organic function, when it fails to work, 
leaves no opportunity for the poisoned water of the blood to pass 
out of the body, and it is thrown back upon the cells, irritating 
them and reducing their action until they cannot do their work, the 
result being that the fluid fills the cell-tissue and serous cavities. 

The best means of prevention is to develop all the lung power 
possible, and for this purpose such a work as Cultivation of the 
Chest is necessary, as it is a large volume in itself. 

Then the skin must be made to do its full share of work, and the 
plan for this result is found in the eleventh treatment in this 
book. 

Lastly, the kidneys are to be spared; and the treatment for 
rheumatism is by far the best for that purpose also. 

The diet must be exactly the same as that given under the last- 
named treatment, which is our number eleven. 

The development of the powerful action of the lungs has of 
itself restored the proper action of the cells, the kidneys and the 
skin; but we do not wish to recommend anything short of the full 
three-part plan as stated. The diet is of itself very important. 

While a physician must attend to all cases where dropsy is 
present, this treatment will be of the greatest service to him. But, 
better than all else, it will prevent dropsy. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904. by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 20 


ipl^thepict * 



THE NINTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 


It is the duty of every adult to take a personal responsibility 
in preventing death from this dread malady among children. The 
little ones have no voice in their care and protection, and their 
dependence is so complete that the duty of parent or guardian 
becomes all the greater on that account. 

It is not enough to employ the best means of cure. It is not 
enough to buy medicines, pay for experts, and get the best care for 
the little sufferers. They are entitled to something more. It is 
that they be saved from the attack of diphtheria. 

In acute cases, or when the disease has made its appearance, not 
a moment should be lost in calling in the services of the best 
doctors available. 

But we hope to avert that necessity, and the purpose of this 
treatment is to show the way to a perfect prevention of the disease. 
We are satisfied that it can be kept away, and that the lives of the 
children may be protected from its ravages. 

Diphtheria is caused by the presence of a specific germ that finds 
its way to the throat and imbeds in the lining or membrane 
where it increases until a large colony is formed, whence poisons 
are sent to all parts of the body by means of the circulation of the 

(383) 


384 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWENTY. 


blood. It is attended by fever, generally of an irregular nature. 
Great debility follows, and the heart becomes very weak. Many 
patients who recover from the attack of the disease die from 
heart failure. 

Anaemia and loss of flesh are features. 

The membrane of the throat grows into what is called the 
diphtheritic membranous condition, which fills the throat and pre¬ 
vents breathing. The inflammation also extends down into the 
air passages and produces suffocation. 

The necessity of help from your family physician may be seen 
at a glance. Delay is cruel. 

While children are the common victims of the disease, it may 
attack adults of any age. 

The same rules for its prevention are to be observed in all cases. 

The throat is almost always the place of the attack. The founda¬ 
tion is the condition of the membrane of the throat or larynx. 
This is sore, inflamed, or congested from colds, or from the habit of 
mouth-breathing; that is, some previous weakness or soreness of 
the throat itself must precede the planting of the germs. When 
such a soil is found, the germs float in and there establish what 
is called a colony. This increases until a certain period has 
elapsed, then the malady appears in all its malignity. The time 
required for development is called the period of incubation. 

The germs can exert little or no injurious effect where the mucus 
lining of the throat, larynx, etc., remains sound and unaffected by 
minor diseases. When once, however, we have such conditions as 
inflamed tonsils or inflammation and ulceration of the mucous 
mebrane, the diptheria bacilli find a soil ready prepared for their 
reception, and typical diphtheretic symptoms are the result. That 
such ulcerated sore throats, inflammation of the tonsils, and similar 
conditions usually precede outbreaks of diphtheria, has for long 
been a well recognized clinical fact; these experiments give the ex¬ 
planation of it, whilst they also afford indications as to the mode of 
treatment. Anti-septic throat washes, not merely gargles, plenty 
of fresh air, and good nourishing food, are what are required. Kill 
the germs as far as possible by means of the anti-septics, and 
strengthen the tissue cells by plenty of oxygen, and by promoting the 
excretion of effete products, by food and exercise, so that the cells 
shall be able to form protective products and shall also be able to 
play their part when called upon to do so. 


DIPHTHERIA. 


385 


In 1875 Klebs, using a powerful microscope, found in the false 
membranes, which develop in diphtheria, a small germ with rounded 
ends, and with, here and there, small clear spaces in its substance, 
a bacillus that was not readily stained, that grew luxuriantly in 
broth, and which, inoculated into animals, gave rise to a peculiar, 
dirty, fibrinous-looking slough at the seat of inoculation. He 
found, however, that in certain cases this germ was absent, the 
predominating organism then seeming to be arranged in masses 
or in short chains. This, when cultivated in broth, gave rise to the 
formation of chains of considerable length. As a result of these 
observations he described diphtheria as occurring in two forms, 
one form resulting from the action of one organism, the second 
being caused by the other. 

These researches were continued by other workers, and Formad, 
in America, came to the conclusion that the rod-shaped germ had 
little to do with the disease, but that the chain-forming germ was 
the real exciting cause. Matters remained at this stage for some 
time—in fact, until Lbffier took up the subject. After examining a 
number of cases of diphtheria, he found that, although there are 
numerous organisms in the false membranes or diphtheritic patches, 
these were mostly near the surface, and many of them were simply 
the organisms that were usually found in the mouth now growing 
under more favorable conditions of nutrition. He found, however, 
that in the deeper layers, or at the inner margin of the layer of 
exudation, the Klebs germ might almost invariably be found. It 
was more deeply situated than any of the others, and was always 
most numerous in the oldest part of the membrane. This was in 
cases of pure diphtheria. In the so-called diphtheretic sore throats 
met with in other diseases, especially in scarlet fever, the chain 
appeared to be the predominant and characteristic organism. 

They are nothing but vegetable cells of peculiar virulence. They 
kill, not as other germs by destroying tissue matter, but by emit¬ 
ting a poison which brings on heart failure. It is the poison that 
kills, and not the trouble at the throat. 

If sufficient time be allowed for the bacteria to form the poison, 
it is useless to remove the false membrane, as, though the bacilli may 
be then destroyed, sufficient poison may have passed into the system 
to cause the death of the patient, “ for in diphtheria, contrary to 
what occurs in most other infective maladies, the infection is not 
produced by the invasion of the tissues by a microbe, but by the 
25 


386 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWENTY. 

diffusion through the organism of a toxic substance prepared on the 
surface of a mucous membrane altogether outside the body, so to 
speak/’ 

The preventive steps are as follows: 

Keep the throat in perfect physical condition. 

Avoid mouth breathing. 

Keep the mouth perfectly clean at all times. 

Keep the teeth clean, for it is supposed that all the germs come 
from foul teeth or from the lips. 

Avoid contact with the germs from outside sources. 

Maintain a perfect vitality. 

The throat can be kept in perfect physical condition by the use of 
a throat wash made of listerine diluted one-half with water, a 
common antiseptic. This should be applied five times a day, once 
after rinsing the mouth out in the morning, following the cleaning 
of the teeth; once after breakfast; once after dinner; once after 
supper; and just before retiring; always following the cleaning of 
the teeth. 

The juice of a fresh lemon, diluted one-half in ice-water, and held 
in the throat, a teaspoonful at a time, directly after the use of the 
listerine, will serve to destroy the germs in case they have just 
reached the throat. The practice of using a tablespoonful of this 
lemon mixture five times a day will prove very beneficial, and 
should be employed even where no diphtheria is feared. It is a good 
habit of cleanliness. 

Mouth breathing is at all times vicious. It is a bad weed in 
human culture. The practice of inhaling through the nose should 
be taught in every home and every school in the land. 

The mouth may be kept clean by the wash of the listerine and of 
the lemon mixtures, and by observing the following rule of clean¬ 
ing the teeth. 

The teeth should be cleansed five times a day. Dry salt should be 
used. It is death to germs. It is also death to the diphtheria 
bacilli that float against the teeth. We will guarantee that there 
is not a man, woman or child in the districts where diphtheria has 
been, who cleans the teeth only three times a day, or less than the 
five times we mention, who does not have the germs of this disease 
on the teeth and in and between the teeth cavities. 

These germs are everywhere. Every particle of dust that floats in 
the rooms of dwellings carries many of them. They are on the 


DIPHTHERIA. 


387 


clothing. They are on the hands, face, chairs, curtains, lace hang¬ 
ings, and wherever there is possibility of lodgment. Drapery that 
is not dusted daily carries loads of them. Old wall paper that is 
cracked or torn, holds them by millions. It is no wonder then that 
they get to the moist lips, thence to the teeth, and await means of 
transit to the throat, where their journey is supposed to end. 

These germs are the penalty of dirty homes, dirty walls, dirty 
floors, dirty clothing, dusty rooms, undusted hangings and curtains, 
and dirty faces and mouths. 

The portal of entrance to the body is at the lips and on the teeth. 
Here they are to be first fought. It is for this reason that children 
who inhale through the mouth catch the germs and take them 
directly to the throat. But even then they first lodge on the lips and 
teeth and bide their time. All the precautions are valuable; as, if 
one fails to destroy the germs, another is likely to do so. 

The teeth should be well cleaned by the liberal use of dry salt, 
applied to the fronts, the backs, and the sides of the upper and 
lower sets, leaving no part untouched. This should be done after 
rising, just before retiring and after each meal, or five times each 
day. The practice should begin early in life, as it is a part of the 
care of the body regardless of protection from diphtheria. 

Do not allow children to come in contact with the germs. This 
may be prevented by stopping the dangerous habit of kissing. It 
is most unhygienic and senseless. More than seventy-five per cent, 
of all cases originate in this one vice alone. Kissing is well enough 
when it means what it ought to imply; but such habit as usually 
practiced is wholly empty. What right has some woman who holds 
no relationship to the children of other people to go about kissing 
them? What right has the children of John Smith to kiss the 
children of William Brown? This pernicious practice should be 
abolished. If there were less of such indiscriminate kissing there 
would be much less diphtheria. 

The vitality is maintained by the plan of middle regime in your 
book of Inside Membership. There is no point in repeating it here, 
as you must of necessity own that book in order to have this treat¬ 
ment. 

The faithful adherence to the teachings herein will effectually 
prevent diphtheria among children and in all cases where it might 


388 SPECIAL TREATMENT NUMBER TWENTY. 


otherwise appear. There is no other way. The method has been 
adopted by thousands of families with the uniform report that the 
disease has never visited their homes. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 21 



THE TENTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

If we turn to some of the best of the latest medical works of the 
present day we find that gout is a “ condition dependent upon dis¬ 
turbed retrograde metamorphosis of the nitrogenous ingredients 
of the food, with local manifestations appearing in the joints, par¬ 
ticularly the metacarpophalangeal articulation of the great toe.” Of 
course, the every-day reader is not supposed to understand the 
“ scientific ” tongue; and it is the duty of Ralstonism to translate 
medical talk into plain English. 

Gout is the result of unbalanced diet; that is, there is too much 
of one kind of food and too little of another. The improper ar¬ 
rangement leads to a condition where the nitrogenous (muscles and 
fiber making) parts are not perfectly dissolved. They remain 
partly oxidized (burned up or destroyed) and create the gouty 
tendency. The activity of this disease appears when there are 
accumulations of insoluble urates in the joints. 

Urates are forms of the food used in the body and being changed 
by animal burning called oxidizing to urea. When they are not 
completely changed they remain in the system; and the worst of it 
is they become insoluble. In one form they appear as uric-acid 

(389) 


390 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-ONE. 

crystals; and in another they are deposits of insoluble cholesterin 
arising in the bile and accumulating as gall-stones in the gall¬ 
bladder. Urea is the name applied to the leading principle of 
prine; it being an organic matter and constituting one-third of all 
the solids of that excretion. It is not uric acid, though commonly 
confounded with it. The office of urea is a very important one; 
and is founded upon the fact that the act of living consists in 
the burning up of the body to produce muscular, nervous and men¬ 
tal force. This destruction must be met by two processes; one 
gets rid of the burnt-up tissues, and the other supplies more nutri¬ 
tion to rebuild what is lost. The burning is caused by carbon and 
oxygen, and the tissues of nitrogenous matter are then called oxi¬ 
dized nitrogen. The average adult must get rid of over an ounce 
a day, and the urea carries it away. It is found in the urine, not 
because it is produced by the kidneys, but because the latter sepa¬ 
rate it from the blood. It is also present in perspiration, in the 
lymph and chyle, in the vitreous humor of the eye, and generally 
throughout the blood. As the waste is constantly going on, the 
means of getting rid of it should never cease. The pores should be 
kept open by frequent bathing and rubbing; and this simple pre¬ 
caution has cured many a case of skin disease due to urea in a 
stagnant state. Of all the afflictions which can come upon the 
human system that of uric acid may be called the worst. In 
healthy urine it constitutes slightly less than one per cent, of the 
solids; its proportion being 0.86 of the whole; while in insects, 
serpents and unclean animal life it is found in very large propor¬ 
tion. It indicates a condition so closely allied to that which ac¬ 
companies rheumatism that it is inseparable from that malady in 
the study of causes. 

A noted specialist, Garrod, says that gout is associated with ex¬ 
cess of uric acid in the blood; for the following reasons: The quan¬ 
tity of uric acid in the system is diminished at least one-half during 
an attack of gout, and is immediately increased beyond its former 
quantity as soon as the attack subsides. “ An attack of gout is at¬ 
tended by an increase of uric acid in the blood, which is a substance 
that represents incomplete combustion of nitrogenous waste ma¬ 
terial.” 

Another specialist, Sir H. Thompson, says that overeating pro¬ 
duces bilious attacks in the first half of life; but these change in the 
last half to other results, known as gout; and that “recurring at- 


GOUT. 


391 


tacks of gout perform the same duty, or nearly so, at this period of 
life that bilious attacks accomplished in youth.” 

While gout is due to the incomplete change of nitrogenous waste 
material in the system, the cause of such failure is found very often 
in the action of the excess of carbons, rich foods, butter, gravies, 
fats and sweets. Sir Dyce Duckworth says that the combination of 
sugar with vegetable acids is, more than anything else, the one great 
cause of gout. 

Another specialist, Ralfe, declares that sugar in combination with 
acids, as well as cooked fat, cooked butter, rich gravies, etc., leads to 
the malady. Some facts are established to-day and the knowledge 
they afford are of immense help in the cure of gout. In patients 
who are subject to the disease, the use of foods, drinks and combina¬ 
tions that always bring on the attacks, tells us what to avoid; and 
when relief is afforded by the withdrawal of injurious articles, and 
greater relief is attained by resort to helpful dieting, the course to 
be pursued is plain. A rule laid down by Cyr is indicative of the 
effect of food and drink upon the malady: “ If a glass of beer, 
spirits or wine is habitually followed by pain in a joint or nerve, it 
is gouty.” 

This rule can be applied by any person. 

Among experiments that always point one way, the following 
show the road to the true treatment; for all specialists agree 
that gout is curable in no other way except by dieting. Butter as 
made without the application of heat never leads to gout; but melt 
it, fry it, or cook it in any way and it may set up an acute attack. 
So slight a thing as heat may interfere with the oxidizing of certain 
things in the body. We all wonder or have wondered why cake, 
which is made of flour, eggs, butter and sugar, is not wholesome 
when each of its ingredients is one of the mainstays of life. Look 
at a piece of butter before it is melted by heat; divide it into 
thirds; let the first third remain solid; let the second third get 
soft and runny from the heat of the room and then get solid 
again; and melt the last third over a hot fire or in a hot oven, and 
let it get solid again, and it will not look like either of the other 
two, nor will the taste be the same. Now re-melt it again by a 
cooking heat, and it will become intensely indigestible. In either 
case, whether once cooked or twice, it aggravates a gouty system, 
and will bring on an attack very quickly if one is subject to 
the malady. 


392 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-ONE. 

Fats of meat that have come in direct contact with the heat, 
as the crisp outside of a roast, are likewise injurious; but the 
inner fats are beneficial, if not taken to excess. Keeping meats 
hot is also a source of injury; as is the custom of long cooking the 
fat part; but the worst of all is the second cooking of meats. In 
the olden days, before ice was abundant, the wealthy classes would 
cook a large cut of meat, and re-cook or re-heat it for each sub¬ 
sequent meal; and among them the malady of gout was the most 
common. 

It may not be true, as has been stated in other books, that gout 
is due to an excess of carbons which interferes with the complete 
oxidizing of the nitrogenous waste; but it is true that perverted 
carbons tend to the malady. Among carbons are fats, sweets, 
starches and alcohol. While the last named is not directly a car¬ 
bon in the food sense, it is over half pure carbon in its chemical 
composition. It is a perverted form. In order to understand how 
gout originates it is necessary to keep in mind the following 
facts: 

1. Fibers or tissue-structures give every part of the body ex¬ 
cept the bones its texture and strength, and are built up chiefly of 
nitrogenous foods which are woven into the tissue of every portion. 

2. In the act of living, acting, exerting, etc., the nitrogenous mat¬ 
ter must be consumed, or burnt up, which is called oxidizing; being 
done in oxygen by the fuel called carbon. 

3. If there is not a sufficiency of oxygen the carbon will cease 
burning, and the nitrogenous waste will be left unconsumed in 
part. The same thing is true in ordinary fibers. Put the most 
inflammable substance in a place where there is no oxygen and it 
will not burn at all. 

4. Perverted carbons in some forms will not assist in the oxi¬ 
dizing of the body; while other carbons tend to preserve the fiber 
and tissue. Thus it is well known that sugar, which is a carbon, 
will preserve certain things from decay; such as fruits, etc.; salt, 
which contains carbon, is also a preservative, and is used to protect 
meats from decay; and alcohol, which is over half carbon, does the 
same thing. 

Experiments show very clearly that the use of alcohol in any 
form, as in beer, malt, wine or liquor, will bring on gouty attacks 
in those who are subject to the malady; that the fats we have re¬ 
ferred to will do the same thing; and especially that the use of 


GOUT. 


393 


sweetened sour fruit is sure to do the same thing also. One in¬ 
vestigator of the subject declared that “gouty old women put up 
such fruits as cherries, plums, currants, grapes and crab-apples in 
jams and jellies, always preferring the fruit a little sour because 
it makes better jellies.” 

There is something peculiarly vicious in the combination of 
sour fruits or any vegetable acids with sweets such as sugar or 
molasses. While the eating of sour fruits without sweetening, 
whether cooked or not, will tend to neuralgia and diarrhoea, it 
will not aggravate gout nor bring on an attack if the fruit had not 
fermented before it was cooked; yet the sweetening of the very 
same fruit will quickly excite severe attacks of gout as soon as 
eaten, if the individual has ever had the malady. 

Nothing could be clearer than that an attack of gout is due 
to something that has been taken into the stomach; and that the 
intervals between the attacks are due to the care and good sense 
that prevails at those periods. As far as the food is concerned 
there are some restrictions that are absolutely necessary if one 
would prevent the acute attacks, as well as reduce the malady day 
by day. Avoid 

1. All alcoholic fluids, as beer, wine, cider, malt and liquor. 
Avoid malt extracts also. If you cannot give up absolutely all 
use of alcohol, there can be no cure of gout, or of gouty rheuma¬ 
tism. 

2. If fruits are eaten, take them in no other shape than raw 
and without combination. Do not eat them within thirty minutes 
before a meal, nor within two hours after. Never sweeten them. 
Never eat preserves, jellies, jams or other forms of put-up fruit. 

3. Do not eat fats that are cooked crisp. Avoid toast that 
has been buttered and put in the heat to- be made hot. Avoid 
melted butter, except such as may be used to dress hot vegetables 
or hot toast. Use cream for dressing whenever possible. Never 
eat anything fried, whether pancakes, potatoes, meats, doughnuts 
or other thing. Do not touch meats that have been warmed 
over, or that have been kept hot, no matter how fresh or how re¬ 
cently cooked. 

4. Do not eat meat oftener than once a day, and then sparingly. 

5. Drink nothing but pure water, or boiled milk. Avoid tea, 
coffee, cocoa, chocolate and the like. 


394 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-ONE. 

6. Everything taken into the system beyond what is actually 
needed to nourish it serves only to add to the malady; therefore 
the whole object of eating and drinking should be to get the 
strength required for each day. 

Do not make any sudden change in dealing with a case of 
gout, except to eliminate all fluids except water and boiled milk 
for drinks. Do not pass to a vegetable diet, except that young 
green vegetables are among the best for the system. 

Soups that are free from all fats are decidedly beneficial; es¬ 
pecially beef, mutton and chicken. The fat can be skimmed off. 

A very stout person should not be given fats of meat; the lean 
being better. A thin, gouty person may be allowed a little of 
the fat with the lean, except as already stated. 

Milk dieting consists of boiled milk not rich in cream. It 
has proven beneficial in some cases; but it is less valuable in pro¬ 
portion as the patient is advanced in years. The latter do well 
on boiled milk strengthened with Mellnfis or Horlick’s food as 
prepared for children. Most people are ignorant of the fact that 
these foods are highly beneficial for adults, if the quantity is in¬ 
creased. 

All salads of every kind should be avoided, especially those of 
meat or fish. 

The meats allowable are beef, lamb, mutton and a little chicken. 

Of the varieties of fish avoid those that are hard and firm, 
such as mackerel, codfish, halibut, salmon. Also avoid lobsters, 
shrimps and crabs. 

Boiled fish, such as shad, bass, whitefish and bluefish, are al¬ 
lowed. 

All smoked and pickled fish, pork, beef or other meat should be 
avoided. 

Ham must not be used, no matter in what form; nor should 
pork, veal, goose, duck, or other meat or game except as already 
stated. 

Eat but one kind of meat the same day, and at one meal only. 

The best food next to boiled milk with Horlick’s or Mellin’s 
food is the farinaceous list, which includes the breakfast foods 
mentioned in the book of Inside Membership; also rice, sago, 
tapioca and hominy. 

Oxalic acid, which is closely allied to uric acid, is contained 
in such vegetables as rhubarb, spinach, tomatoes, asparagus, rad- 


GOUT. 


395 


ishes and sorrel. Beets are too sweet. In advanced stages of 
gout cabbage, old peas, old beans, old com, celery, onions, sweet 
potatoes, yams and cucumbers should be avoided. 

The best vegetables are white potatoes cooked as long as pos¬ 
sible and very mealy, young peas, young beans, string beans, 
parsnips, turnips, cauliflower, eggplant (not fried), artichokes and 
carrots in moderation. 

Fruits are sometimes beneficial, such as any mellow kinds that 
are dead ripe and palatable without sugar or other dressing. Avoid 
figs, prunes, bananas, dates, strawberries, all very sour fruits, 
and any that are not very mellow from thorough ripeness. Some 
doctors declare that no fruits should be used; others that some 
fruits are beneficial. Harmony is obtainable by using the few 
that are palatable when they are dead ripe, chiefly very mellow, 
tender peaches, pears, mild apples baked, and cantaloupes. Avoid 
old fruits, or dried, canned, preserved, candied or sweetened fruits. 

In no disease is there so great a difference of opinion among 
doctors and specialists as in that of gout. They differ widely as 
to the use of meat, fruit, water, wine, milk, vegetables and grains. 
In Europe Bordeaux wine in moderation is preferred to water for 
those of advanced years who have drank alcohol all their lives. 
In America all alcoholic drinks are prohibited. In England Syd¬ 
enham condemned water for the gouty; and it was found that 
hard water is not good. Yet aerated distilled water, or pure spring 
water is the best drink of all. Then milk was found to be bad in 
some cases; but when a little salt is added to boiled milk mixed 
with Mellin’s or Horlick’s food it is sure to be a most beneficial 
article of diet in gout. So all through the list of disagreements 
it is possible to find the key of harmony. 

One specialist forbids white flour bread; but when the bread 
is two days old and is thoroughly toasted on both sides and broken 
up in mutton or chicken broth, it is very helpful in effecting a 
cure of gout. Fresh bread, hot rolls, muffins, etc., must always 
be discarded; but when it is old and toasted it ceases to be in the 
same chemical condition. 

Gout is rapidly reduced under the foregoing treatment if the 
patient is reasonably active, say on the feet five to seven hours 
daily, and in the open air. Violent, long-continued exercise is 
not good; but indolence, inactivity, indoor life and feeble respira¬ 
tion all conduce to establishing and increasing gout. Walking, 


396 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY ONE. 

playing, deep-breathing, and balanced physical culture without 
apparatus are aids to a cure if the diet is right. 

Rheumatic gout should be treated in the manner described in 
the eleventh Special Treatment of this book, except where more 
help or light is afforded under the present monograph; let that also 
be added. 

Diabetic gout should be dealt with under the treatment for 
diabetes in this book; but where additional help can be secured 
from the present treatment, the same should be added to that for 
diabetes. 


From Book of Complete Membeighip. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 22 



THE ELEVENTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

Among the many thousands of experiments we have made, none 
has been more persistent than that which was to determine whether 
or not the hair, once gray or white, may be restored to its original 
color by a process of nature. 

We have found thus far that the loss of hair cannot he cured 
after the head has become bald; nor can the gray be driven out 
after it has once come in. 

Prevention, therefore, is the only method to be pursued. 

Hair turns gray, or falls out, and as a rule when one occurs the 
other does not; that is, when the hair becomes gray the head is not 
likely to become bald. 

The finer the hair, the longer baldness will be delayed. The 
coarser the hair the more one has to look out for baldness. These 
rules are not uniform, but are general only. 

The health of the scalp has everything to do with the health of 
the hair. To excite the scalp unduly will call the poisons there and 
maintain a constant condition of dandruff, which is inducive to the 
loss of the hair, or else to baldness. 

The use of dandruff cures is the most prolific cause of the con¬ 
tinuance of dandruff. Ammonia is hurtful both to the hair and to 

(397) 



S98 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-TWO. 

the scalp; it takes the color out of the former, and kills the soil of 
the latter so that health cannot be maintained. Cologne or alcohol 
in any form, except where mentioned in this treatise, should be 
avoided. We very recently told a barber that the use of cologne 
on the hair was the cause of its loss of color. He did not think so. 
To test the matter he used it on the righthand side of the head 
and the righthand side of the moustache of each of his customers 
where circumstances permitted, with the result that the gray and 
white soon began to appear. Without this experiment he would 
never have been convinced. 

We make these remarks for the purpose of showing that it is 
better to keep as close as possible to nature and let alone the various 
remedies that are offered. 

From the very character of the hair, it should never be wet from 
external application, unless to clean it; and it is even then much 
more thoroughly cleaned by combing and brushing than by the use 
of water. It can be set down as a good rule that the hair should 
not be washed or wet except by the use of such applications as we 
will mention. 

The scalp gives out an oil if left to itself, and under the gentle 
stimulus of friction witf* a fine comb or. a brush. If wet it will not 
let out this oil. Wat&r and oil will not mingle. The former 
drives away the latter. 

The scalp must be treated as a garden in which the hair is the 
plant life. This is not a case of illustration but of plain fact. No 
garden can be left to itself. Weeds come by neglect, and you 
should not be surprised to find that dandruff, grayness and falling 
out of the hair are the natural results of the weedy scalp. Of 
course the weeds are not the same in character, but their damage is 
just as severe as in an ordinary garden. 

The soil in which the hair grows must be cultivated. One of the 
first requisites is plenty of fresh air, and the scalp gets less than 
any other garden on earth. No wonder the plants grow weak and 
sickly. The head should be uncovered as much as possible, always 
■avoiding the danger of getting cold, for if yon are not used to ex¬ 
posure you will suffer by it. 

Another requisite is sunlight. No plant will do well in the 
shade. The greater the amount of sunlight that the hair gets the 
better will be its health. These two means of feeding it will almost 
accomplish the full scope of the desired improvement; and, in the 


GRAY HAIR. 


399 


few rare cases where a bald head has come into a growth of hair 
or the hair has come back to its original color after turning white, 
the only method employed has been to adopt the two suggestions 
stated: namely, give the scalp plenty of air and plenty of sunlight. 

The next requisite is freedom of circulation. The tight rim of 
a cap or hat around the head cuts olf ihe blood in the scalp and de¬ 
prives the roots of the hair of their much needed nutrition. This 
cause of itself has been often noted as producing baldness and gray¬ 
ness ; and it may be traced in thousands of cases to-day where it is 
doing like damage. A tight band around the arm cuts off much of 
the circulation and weakens the hand. 

The closing up of the perspiration of the scalp by the wearing of 
hats that have no means of ventilation is another common cause of 
the presence of toxins that destroy the roots of the hair by poison. 
Nature, after a few years of exposure of the scalp, almost in¬ 
variably comes to the rescue with some means of protection. If 
she will not bring back color or hair, she will do as much as pos¬ 
sible in those directions; but, more than all, she will not let the 
hair grow weak, gray or dead, if air, sunlight, freedom, and ven¬ 
tilation are given the scalp. Prevention is sure. 

Under the conditions just stated the hair improves and finds its 
own oil if water is kept from it. 

But if it is slow in doing so, the soil should receive cultivation, 
and this may be given it in the following manner: Get a clean 
comb that is not sharp at the points, and have it as fine as possible; 
then comb the scalp in all directions and all reverse directions; that 
is, if you comb one way, turn and retrace at once in the opposite 
direction. This will take the place of garden cultivation. Irrita¬ 
tion by pressure or by sharp points in the comb will invite the dan¬ 
druff ; so avoid doing this. 

Next use a.stiff brush and curry the scalp in all directions, re¬ 
versing each as you proceed. 

To give the roots of the hair their proper exercise, pull gently on 
a bunch of hairs held tightly in one hand, but not hard enough to 
pull them out. The loss of the weak ones under such degree of 
force as will cause slight pain will do good and not the slightest 
harm. 

The extracting of a gray hair now and then is a benefit to the rest 
of the hair, for at the roots of each such hair is found a toxin- 
condition that is relieved somewhat by taking out the hair by the 


400 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-TWO. 


roots. We are still at work on this line of experiment and will 
be pleased to have any of our members report the result of this 
practice of extracting a few gray hairs. The old idea that such 
thinning out caused a greater number of gray hairs to reappear is 
disproved by results that show the opposite to be true. In a few 
cases the first gray hairs were removed from the hair as fast as they 
came, and the graying of the hair ceased entirely. If the vitality 
of the body can be maintained we are satisfied that the loss of the 
natural color can be wholly prevented by the practice of extracing 
each gray hair as it comes, beginning always in the first year or 
two of the turning. When the whole head is gray, it is too late. 
This treatment is preventive and not curative. 

If the graying is general we do not believe that the removal of 
some of the hairs will help the others get back their original color; 
but several of our experimenters claim that even this can be done. 
We are inclined to believe that baldness will ensue, although it is 
well known that nervous diseases and some maladies like typhoid 
that cause total baldness do not destroy the growing tendencies; 
and there are countless cases where the head that was completely 
bald from such disorders has come back to even a better growth of 
hair. 

The vitality of thd body determines the vitality of the hair, un¬ 
less the latter has been suffocated by close hats, or choked by tight 
bands, or poisoned by the scalp sweat. When all the conditions are 
favorable to the growth of good hair, except the general vitality, the 
latter will intervene and produce loss or graying. A low state of the 
nerves means a weak condition of the hair; showing that much of the 
work of bettering the hair may be performed in the general health. 
Shock to the nervous centers will often turn the hair by paralyzing 
the root-nerves; and the natural color may be lost in a few hours. 
Our treatment in this book on Faulty Nerves, coupled with the 
high regime of the book of Inside Membership, will help the hair 
to such an extent that graying could hardly be possible. 

Taxing the mind or the nerves or even the physical faculties will 
show results in the loss of the hair or its change to gray. Medi¬ 
cines would indeed be miraculous if they could hold the color 
against such odds. 

The best wash for the hair is witch hazel. This can be used as 
much and as often as may be desired. It is not possible to get too 
much of it unless it is made from wood alcohol. 


GRAY HAIR. 


401 


In case of sores or pimples on the scalp, Ihe use of listerine diluted 
one-half will prove all that is necessary. Never apply camphor to 
the head, as it is injurious to the brain as well as to the hair. 

The white of an egg mixed with a tablespoonful of witch hazel 
and rubbed for ten minutes all through the hair and into the scalp 
until it is absorbed, will furnish food for the roots. There are cases 
that are well authenticated where men have practiced this custom, 
using white wine in place of the witch hazel, and the hair has 
retained its natural color for more than eighty years. The egg is a 
food for the weak roots. This application may be made once a 
week. The only objection to it is the length of time required to get 
the egg absorbed and the hair cleaned afterward; but a half hour 
will suffice if the hands move quickly. This may be done as often 
as twice a week, if you can spare the time and patience. 

The soil in which the hair grows is much like the earth in which 
trees, grasses and plants grow. The soil must not only be fed with 
the right kind of nutrition, but all toxins and poisons must be kept 
out. It is recorded that whatever will remove such bad influences 
from the blood will at the same time help the hair; and there are 
claims that the natural color has been restored by purifying the 
blood. 

Time was when the blood of the sick was let out; that practice 
was universal. It let out toxins also, for these poisons are in the 
blood. If enough of the toxins could be drawn off to permit the 
system to regain its mastery, then the disease could be checked. 
The practice of blood-letting is now ridiculed; yet it was scientifi¬ 
cally taught and conducted for centuries and effected some great 
cures. We know of physicians of the very highest rank who em¬ 
ploy it to-day when it may do good. The. principle is a sound one, 
even if the use of it was blind guess-w r ork; it let out a quantity of 
the toxins. 

Since its disuse, there has come into vogue the practice of phy¬ 
sicking. The principle is right; for the toxins tend naturally to 
find partial vent in the intestinal excretions. When the bowels 
are emptied, a free movement takes place in the whole s}^stem 
toward a second discharge of toxins into the emptied parts; thus 
relieving the entire body to some extent. Hence the very first 
thing to be done in nearly every case is to draw off the contents of 
the intestines. Here is another illustration of the use of a right 
principle blindly employed. 

26 


402 SPECIAL TREATMENT NOi TWENTY-TWO. 

Then it was found that sweating drew off poisons; and still 
another right principle was blindly employed. 

God and nature gave man the instruments of knowledge, but the 
knowledge itself was delayed. 

It was found that: 

1. Anti-toxins destroyed certain toxins at the expense of introduc¬ 
ing others. 

2 . Drugs did the same thing. 

3. Herbs did the same thing. 

4. Blood-letting caused the loss of much that was good with the 
bad. 

5. Physicking removes much of the food before it is digested; 
for the most important part of digestion occurs in the intestines. 

6. Sweating takes out but a small part of the toxins, and de¬ 
prives the blood of a valuable fluid. 

Yet we cannot fail to recognize the grand principle that impelled 
each line of practice. Each used the best methods available. Each 
aimed to fight down and drive out the poisons that caused impure 
blood. 


from Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special •■Treatment 


NUMBER 23 



THE TWELFTH 0E THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

In case the child is sick and there is danger in the attack, the 
family physician should be summoned. But if the child is now 
well, we propose that it shall not become sick, and therefore it will 
not be necessary to call the doctor. 

What are commonly called the maladies of infancy are merely the 
carelessness of those who have charge of the children. There is no 
reason why any child should be taken sick and die; yet half of all 
that are born die before they reach the limit of childhood. The 
greater proportion of fatalities will be found among the ignorant 
and lowly. 

The life and health of the child may be protected by observing the 
following plan of conduct: 

1. The drinking water should be looked after. More than half of 
the deaths of children are due to bad water, and not the slightest 
attempt has been made to correct the evil. Parents take chances in 
the matter knowing full well that there is no law to hold them to 
account. The bowels are more often the place of attack from this 
source, and there are various diseases that carry off the little ones; 
the fault being due to bad water. 


(403) 


404 STECIAE TREATMENT No. TWENTY THREE- 

We lay down this proposition: Every drop of water that is given 
to an infant should not only be supposed to be pure, but should 
be KNOWN to be pure. It can be known. Guess-work is not neces¬ 
sary. There is typhoid in all parts of the world. Typhoid is taking 
off more victims each year. The public do not care. They bury 
their dead, go through their funeral rites, suffer from the loss of 
dear ones, and go on drinking typhoid water. No one cares. The 
victims in their graves do not worry about it; those who have sur¬ 
vived think they are over with it; those who are yet to be attacked 
believe most devoutly that THEY will not be felled by the disease 
if they think at all on the subject; and no one cares. In fact, 
there is not any one to care. So typhoid is stalking through the land 
on its increasing journey. Last year there were eighteen thousand 
more deaths in this country from typhoid than the year before; 
the year before there were fourteen thousand more deaths from ty¬ 
phoid than the year before that; and the increase has been steady. 
But there is no one to care, and no one cares. The only responsi¬ 
bility that God will hold us to is that which deals with children who 
are not able to guard themselves. If they were they would examine 
the water, and would know what they were drinking. But the Crea¬ 
tor of these innocent children does not look on with indifference at 
the neglect of the men and women who might drive all typhoid out 
of the land in twelve months and who will not raise a finger to do 
so. He will find a way to hold them responsible for these deaths. 
Out of every million children born, five hundred thousand, or half 
a million, die untimely deaths in childhood. Someone must care. 

The water, then, must be known to be pure. Filtering it is not 
enough. Spring water boiled for half an hour and then sealed up 
for use within two or three days, and kept on the ice until used, 
will solve the question. Filtering and boiling, and then putting it 
on ice, is the method of prevention. 

But the s}'stems of infants will not always stand hard water, and 
there are various kinds of water that contain minerals that are 
hurtful. Distilled water, boiled after it is distilled, and boiled if 
it has stood more than two or three days, and boiled if it has not 
been on the ice and has stood for more than six hours, will be the 
best. Next to distilled water rain water is to be preferred. It 
should be boiled under the same conditions. The ice keeps the 
germs of the air away. If there is no ice, and the weather is warm, 
the water will spoil; for which reason it should be boiled. 


INFANT MALADIES. 


405 


Water furnishes nine-tenths of all the food of the child; and it 
ought to receive some attention. 

If cared for as directed it will do more than any other agency 
towards preserving the health of the infant. 

All children, even the babes of only a few weeks of age, require 
water, and iced water is the best for them, or at least very cold 
water. They do not wish it for the stomach so much as for the lips 
and tongue. Let it be given in tiny sips as often as the child is rest¬ 
less or cries. It can do no harm, and does a world of good. 

2. The food should be suited to the requirements of the child. 
This subject will be fully considered in the pages that follow. 

3. Such habits as will protect the child from contact with disease 
should be taught as early in life as possible. The general principles 
of this plan are fully described under the head of diphtheria in this 
volume; for that is the most to be dreaded of all maladies. It is 
particularly necessary that the habit of indiscriminate kissing 
should be stopped, for the germs ihat attack the infant make little 
or no impression on the adult, and the latter brings them to the 
child. 

4. Taking in the breath of a grown person, especially one with 
foul teeth, is dangerous to the child. All mature teeth, and most 
of the infant teeth are loaded with the germs of diphtheria. This 
is no theory. The microscope shows it to be a fact. There are 
millions of babes who at this hour are asleep in their mothers’ arms, 
with their mouths close to the open lips of the mother, taking in the 
poisons from the lungs of the latter, and absorbing a variety of dis¬ 
ease germs; and what wonder is it that half a million in every 
million die in infancy or early childhood ? 

5. Exposure to temperatures that are too cold for the child has 
caused many a death. Here is a nurse, well clad, standing in a 
room of seventy degrees, bathing a child that requires not less than 
seventy-four degrees when clad and not less than ninety degrees 
when naked. Yet the child is not only naked but is wet with water. 
What wonder that it learns to hate the bath, and that it has constant 
colds, with incipient attacks of pneumonia? Or that it has the 
croup, or any one of the maladies of infancy ? Children are allowed 
to play on the floors while the thermometer registers a proper heat 
half way up the wall. Why not place it where the child is ? At and 
near the floor the cold currents run, and the carbon dioxide, with 
which every room is tainted, falls and holds its fixed position, be- 


406 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-THREE. 

cause that gas is heavier than air. Yet it is at the floor that 
children play. It is not advisable to allow them to be on the floor 
unless the day is warm and there are windows and doors open so as 
to equalize the temperature and drive the poisonous gas out of the 
room. We know that it is inconvenient to keep children on beds or 
in chairs, or in playing cribs, or, as has been done with success, on 
elevated floors with protected sides; but it is a choice between health 
and sickness. The fact remains that it is dangerous to allow them 
to stay on the floor unless they are standing. 

6. Dirt and dust are much of the between-meals diet of children. 
It is on the dust and dirt of a room that much of the bacteria that 
produce sickness live until they can find lodgment in the human 
body. We have seen many a time mothers or maids sweep rooms 
in which the children are at play. A ray of sunlight from the 
window will show what such a condition means, for the millions of 
particles that float about dance plainly before the eyes. Yow take a 
microscope and look at any of these bits of dust and see what you 
have. The wide open mouths of the children drink in disease, and 
the throat is first to give way, or the glands suffer. From this source 
we get nearly half of all infant maladies. A room that has been 
recently swept is full of dust. The fact that the sweeping has 
ceased does not lessen the dust; it must have time to settle. 

7. Excess of curtains of lace, or drapery, or loose wall paper, or 
clothing that is kept unused in the room, will attract and hold 
countless millions of these death particles. As an example of such 
danger we were called to see a room that was devoted to the children, 
and we were told that it was always kept just as clean as we found 
it. Admitting a ray of sunlight by darkening nearly all the win¬ 
dow space, we shook the lace curtains and a cloud of dust came from 
them; we shook some drapery with the same results, and we showed 
that the hanging bits of torn wall paper, the old clothing that hung 
on hooks, old papers on high shelves that never were reached, etc., 
etc., contained the dangers most to be dreaded. A wind in the 
room was sure to dislodge some of this old dust. The play room 
and living rooms of children should be clean from wall to wall, and 
should not carry burdens of dust. Yor should children be allowed 
in any room that has been swept until the dust has settled, which 
may require an hour or more. 

8. Giving dainties and pastry, cake, confectionery and the many 
things that are hurtful to older people, to the young is sure to do 


INFANT MALADIES. 


407 


harm. There are plain foods and wholesome desserts that suffice; 
and it is in childhood more than at any other time that the body 
should he well built. It pays to avoid these dangers to the health. 

9. Putting medicines down the throats of children, especially 
patent medicines, is as near a crime as anything can be. The use of 
wood alcohol is now so general that no drug of any kind can be 
safely bought. Wood alcohol is a cheap and low grade spirit, that 
causes blindness or injury to the eyes, and in cases where it is drank 
in place of whiskey or in that liquor it causes death in a few hours. 
It is made at a very low cost, and all makers of medicines use it 
where alcohol is a part of the drug. Analysis to-day shows that 
more than ninety per cent, of all medicines that are loudly adver¬ 
tised are made in part of wood alcohol. 

Look, if you will, at the first hundred children you may meet 
on the street, and note how many of them wear glasses, and how 
many have defective eyesight; and you will know to what extent 
that community has made use of medicines for their children's 
ills. Some mothers do not hesitate to throw almost any kind of 
advertised medicine into the stomachs of their babes. The rule is to 
avoid all that are advertised, and all that depend on testimonials. 
The advertisement, the testimonial and the adulteration are all of 
one progeny. 

The best medicine for the child is the old-fashioned castor oil 
for urgent or severe cases; and for mild ones the use of olive oil is 
to be preferred. These carry out of the system all that causes harm 
to the stomach or the bowels; whether the latter are constipated or 
are loose; for the cause of the looseness may he removed by the 
activity of the oil. But get the old-fashioned kind. When you con¬ 
ceal the taste you adulterate the oil. 

Bathing a weak body in olive oil is of advantage, as it builds up 
the blood through the pores. The oil is applied after a thorough 
bath, by rubbing it in the chest and over the whole torso. 

10. But the greatest of all problems is what to give children to 
eat. We will begin at birth and follow along briefly through the 
years of growing youth; knowing that the diet at this period will 
determine the whole future of the child. 

While it is true that diet has more to do with the life and health 
of the child than any other thing, the aid of sunshine, activity, and 
constant protection from dangers must also be invoked; and with 
k this understanding we will present the following plan: 


408 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. T W E N T Y - T H R EE. 


THE FEEDING OF CHILDREN. 

From Birth to Youth. 

We will state the principles that prevail in nature for the welfare 
of the child. Few parents, and not many trained nurses or other 
nurses, really know what the infant requires—and the result is that 
half the number of babes that come into the world are taken out of 
it very soon. 

A child ought to live—all children should live; not fifty in a 
hundred, nor ninety-nine in a hundred; but every one of them. 

The mother should not nurse the child; it should be brought up 
on the bottle. This proposition is purely Ralston. It is not agreed 
to by the majority of physicians. Nevertheless, out of a list of four 
hundred thousand births, of which two hundred thousand were fol¬ 
lowed by bottle feeding, and the other two hundred thousand by 
feeding at ihe breast, ninety-one per cent, of the former escaped 
practically all the illness of infancy, while only fourteen per cent, 
of the nursed babes escaped. 

The use of had water and of impure cows’ milk will defeat any 
otherwise perfect food-plan for children. 

Inasmuch as Ralstonism saves all mothers and all children in the 
act of childbirth, the mother of the babe will be alive, so as to allow 
the latter to draw the breasts. This should occur at about six to 
eight hours after the child is born. The value to the mother is the 
reflex uterine contractions that follow. The value to the child is 
the sucking from the breasts of the fluid that precedes milk, and 
that is known as colostrum. This comes to the breast for the first 
three days, and is present soon after the birth. The alimentary 
canal of the child contains waste matter called meconium, which 
ought to be driven out, and colostrum performs that service. Colos¬ 
trum is largely albumin. 

During the first three days, the babe should be nursed from the 
breast five times a day, at intervals of two or three hours each, al¬ 
though it ought not to be awakened to be fed unless it is puny 
and has gone more than five hours in the daytime. 

Cold water should be given it as often as it will take it; using a. 
small spoon, and letting it take a few drops as it wishes. In fact, 
cold water ought to be on hand all the time, for it will not be taken 
too abundantly; and experience with Ralston babies has shown that 
all infants need fully one hundred times more water than they get. 


INFANT MALADIES. 


409 


For a few weeks, only a drop or two passes the lips at a time, but it 
is most refreshing and grateful. On entering a house where a 
babe is crying, we can quiet it very quickly in a majority of cases. 
Children do not get enough water in the first three years of their 
lives. When they cry, they are wanting water in six or seven cases 
out of every ten. 

On the fourth day the child should commence its career of bottle 
feeding. Malted milk is by far the best, for it requires no milk 
with it. Cows 5 milk is not suited for the child during the first 
twelve months. The times of feeding, and the quantity needed from 
month to month, may be found given in the directions that accom¬ 
pany the malted milk. If the bottles, nipples, and all other appa¬ 
ratus are kept perfectly clean, the child will thrive much better on 
this food than on the vicissitudes of the breast. 

When a child’s bowels are out of order, while living on the diet 
of malted milk, the trouble is due to the character of the drinking 
water that is mixed with the food, or that is taken between times. 
Some infants are very sensitive to a change of drinking water. The 
minerals that abound in some kinds of well water cause internal 
troubles, and sometimes they cause skin eruptions. Malted milk 
contains all the lime and other nutrition of the mineral and solid 
kinds that the child needs; and the safest water to use with the milk 
and to give it to drink between times is distilled water aerated. 

Therefore when there is any excess of colic or any undue looseness 
of the system, change at once the water you are using, and find out 
what kind is most suited to the babe. Some colic is necessary in 
order to distend the intestines and prepare them for their work as 
the life develops. 

Bottle feeding is not artificial, despite the fact that it is so-called; 
if the right kind of food be obtained it is much more natural than 
the mother’s milk. The latter is never better than the health of the 
parent, while malted milk is an exact reproduction of a perfect 
human body in its food values. 

The first three days’ diet is colostrum from the mother. 

The first week afterwards is the beginning week of its real feed¬ 
ing, and its first bottle should be at five o’clock in the morning; and 
the last at eleven o’clock at night, at intervals of two hours; and 
a compromise bottle at about two or three o’clock in the early morn¬ 
ing if the child is persistent. 

From the beginning of the second week to the end of the second 


410 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-THREE- 1 

month, the same feeding will suffice, but without the compromise 
bottle. 

From the beginning of the third month to the end of the sixth 
month, the feeding should occur at intervals of two-and-a-half 
hours, and from about five in the morning until about half-past ten 
at night. Never wake the child to feed it. If it sleeps past its 
time, feed it when it awakes and count the next period from that 
feeding. 

From the beginning of the seventh month until the end of one 
year, let the intervals be three hours, and extend from six or seven 
o’clock in the morning until ten at night. It is a great mistake to 
allow a child to go four hours without food when it is awake and 
wants it. The three hour plan is the best, and we have known 
the two-and-a-half hour plan to work even better. This counter¬ 
balances the loss of time to over-sleeping. Feeding should never 
drag or be long-continued at a period. 

Now comes the critical period in the life of the infant—the 
passing from the bottle to solid food. In the start let it be under¬ 
stood that, during the first twelve months, the sole diet is malted 
milk and cold water, except the first three days of colostrum. 

During the second year the bottle should divide the honors with 
other food, in the proportion of about seventy-five per cent, the 
first six months, and fifty per cent, the last six months. During 
the third year the bottle should be used at the rate of about thirty- 
three per cent, in the first six months and sixteen per cent, in the 
last six months. Malted milk will support the life of an adult, and 
is rapidly taking the place of cocoa, chocolate, tea and coffee; for, 
when hot, it is a food and a stimulant, just as hot milk is both. 

The displacing foods for an infant are those that are intro¬ 
duced during the early part of the second year of its life, and that 
continue gradually to take the place of the bottle. A child should 
have an early morning bottle, say about seven o’clock to begin 
the day with, not only in the second year, but also until the end of 
the third year. The day should begin with perfect,—therefore the 
malted milk, taken as hot as possible, is the introduction of the 
day’s health. Nor is it a bad custom to allow it to drink it from 
the cup in after years, always as a morning drink, just like a cup 
of tea. 

With this basis to open the day on, there is less chance of the 
child’s getting out of order. 


INFANT MALADIES. 


411 


The infant prefers to take its food from the bottle until about 
eight teeth have come into their full position. The nursing bottle 
must have no tube; but should consist of a rubber nipple on the 
end of the bottle; the glass should be white so that the interior 
can be distinctly seen; there should be no shoulders to the bottle, 
for they prevent cleanliness; there should be, instead, a gradual 
slope from the middle to the neck; and the utmost care should be 
exercised in keeping the bottle and the rubber nipple immaculately 
clean. In this one care will rest the intestinal health of the babe. 

One fact is not generally known. The shape of the mouth and 
the arrangement of the teeth depend very largely upon the way the 
bottle is held. The nurse or mother should lift it up so that the 
nipple may enter directly at the center of the mouth and point 
to the back of the tongue. It should be raised to a proper height, 
and here is where the mistakes are usually made. 

A Gradation of Food from Weaning to Puberty. 

If you wish a healthy boy or girl, and you do, it is necessary to 
regulate their diet with the utmost care. The things that are 
now given to children, young and old, are such as would make the 
mother writhe in agony for years after the little one has gone to 
its grave, could she know the mistake she is making. 

We are glad to state that all that we now include in this has the 
thorough approval of all authorities on infant and child feeding. 
When we differ with them, as we do in regard to the use of the 
bottle, we say frankly that Ralstonism and the weight of other 
opinion do not agree. But in the following facts we are in ac¬ 
cord with every good authority. We will number them for the 
sake of clearness in arrangement. 

1. The first part of the life of the child, up to the time when 
its system undergoes a change, at two years, it needs animal food, 
and this is best given in the form of milk, with some of the juice of 
beef as hereinafter stated. 

2. Cows’ milk is not adapted to the system of the child, even 
with all the modifications that are now in use. It is a partial sub¬ 
stitute, and its lack of adaptation may be overcome by some con¬ 
stitutions. 

3. Unmalted starchy foods at any time during the first two years 
are a menace to the life of the infant. 


412 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-THREE. 


4. As the child grows up, from the beginning of its second year, 
and sometimes earlier, it must be made to pass with very easy 
gradations from its early diet to one that includes a mixture of 
starches, meats, fruits and vegetables; but these good things may 
cause serious illness and they do often lead to death, when not 
properly cooked, properly separated in their parts, and properly fed. 

5. Starches include flour of any grain, meal of any grain, and 
cereals; the last named being the coarser form of the former. 

6. When flour is used, it should be made in the form of bread, 
raised at home; yeast being the only raising power, and baked for 
two full hours; then laid away for at least two days or more, and 
the longer the better for the stomach of the child, provided it is 
not spoiled. All authorities say in effect that it is criminal to give 
to young children any new bread, any biscuit, or any food that is 
raised with baking powder. New bread raised with yeast is fully 
as bad for a child. Baker’s bread is not safe, for it is short-baked, 
is made with alum in nearly every bakery, even where they say 
they never saw alum and do not know what it looks like. No greater 
work could be done by the public than to have the bakeries con¬ 
verted to the proper way of making bread. Only yesterday at a 
restaurant where prices are high and everything is first class except 
in health methods of cooking, all patrons were served with old 
bread, new bread and baking-powder biscuits; and we saw three 
different groups in parts of the great hall where they were not in 
communication with each other. We are strangers to them all. 
One group ate the new, hot biscuit; another group ate the new 
bread; and the third group took the old bread. The weakest look¬ 
ing party was the first; and their habits in the past must have con¬ 
formed to their present use of the new biscuit. The second group 
were in fair health, but not by any means as well as the third 
group. These facts speak for themselves. The worst of it all was 
the almost universal habit of giving the baking-powder biscuit to 
the children. 

7. Salted foods are unsuited to children, and it is better that they 
omit them until the age of fifteen years. This includes all corned 
meats, brine meats of every kind, and salted foods where the salt is 
used to preserve them. 

8. Salt itself as a condiment is necessary for children, but it 
should be given in limited quantities. Its over-use leads to de¬ 
generation of tissue. 


INFANT MALADIES. 


413 


9. The flesh of swine should not be given to a child before it is 
fifteen years old; and this includes ham, bacon, and all other parts 
of the pig or hog. In some cases where the child is in good health, 
a thin piece of ham that has been long boiled may be given oc¬ 
casionally after eight years of age. 

10. No condiments except salt should be given; and no rich 
dressings or gravies or sauces except the plainest and most whole¬ 
some. Even the plainest of these ought to be withheld until after 
the fourth year. 

11. Baked potatoes are the best up to the end of the fourth year; 
then mashed and stewed potatoes may be added; and all other 
kinds after the eighth year. Fried potatoes are not good at any 
age if there is any crisp surface on them, or if they are cooked 
hard or brown. 

12. Viscera should never be given to children under the age of 
fifteen. These include the heart, liver, brains, kidneys, sweet¬ 
breads, roes and other parts of the removable inwards of animal 
life. They are a pretty bad diet for the strong man who is in per¬ 
fect health; yet they are very popular. They make good soup. 

13. No game should be given to a child under five years old, 
and then only the best kinds, as will be afterwards stated. Fowl 
may be given during the earlier years, as we shall see. 

14. Pickles and pickled foods must be avoided up to the age of 
fifteen. This includes fift} T -seven varieties of pleasant tasting ar¬ 
ticles that are not good for the child nor for the person of maturer 
years who is not in perfect health. 

15. All canned goods should be denied chidren under five years 
of age; and there are very few indeed that are suitable prior to the 
fifteenth year. 

16. Young children ought not to have tomatoes in any form; it 
is better to wait until they are in their teens before giving them 
any of this fruit-vegetable. 

17. Children under five should not be given any of the coarser 
vegetables, such as beets, turnips, carrots, cabbage, parsnips, etc., 
but very young beets may be allowed after the third year, if given 
occasionally. 

18. Cake, pastry, fancy crackers, crisp biscuit, package cakes, 
such as crackers and biscuit sold in little boxes, store ginger cakes, 
snaps, cookies, and all combinations of flour and sugars should be 
denied the young child. Such foods are not good for adults. We 


414 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. T W E N T Y - T H R E E. 


know that many persons will cite the cases of young children who 
have grown up on this kind of diet; but not one of them has grown 
up free from disease. They may be thick and fat, but that does 
not indicate health. Children that have been given old bread for 
their lunches, and none of the cheap flour concoctions that are on 
sale by the billion in the stores, have escaped disease and have come 
into young manhood and young womanhood free from many of the 
dragging consequences of a bad diet. 

19. Griddle cakes and batter cakes, fritters, and all the things 
that are marked not allowed in these Classics should be denied the 
child at all times. Yet some mothers begin to feed such things 
when the babe is still nursing, and if the graves that have been 
made by such ignorance could he illumined as they may be some 
day, the guilty parents would be driven into instant blindness. 
Because some tough child escapes for a few years, is no reason why 
it should be held up as an example of the harmlessness of the diet. 
Of course many will escape; for you cannot kill infants and child¬ 
ren all at once. You could put a thousand children in a boat and 
send it over Niagara Falls, and the chances are that many would 
come out of the catastrophe unhurt; but is that a reason for trying 
it ? It is a deadly danger; and so are all products of the pan. 

20. The practice of giving bananas to children is one of the worst 
of all errors, and many have been started into sickness from which 
they have never emerged. Diphtheria and tuberculosis as well as 
many intestinal maladies come from this practice. The skin of 
fruit of any kind is had; as is any fruit that has large seed. The 
skin of fowl or game is always hurtful. Nuts of all kinds should be 
denied until after the age of fifteen. 

21. Children under the age of five ought not to have sweets and 
preserves, although they crave them. Fancy candies and rich 
cakes, jellies and the like are not suited to the system of the child. 
This may seem to deny them the things that they most seek; but 
on the other hand it is common experience that children so fed 
are sickly, despite the occasional exception. 

22. What is there left for the boys and girls? It is our duty 
to tell herein all that will be helpful to the building up of their 
best condition. 

23. When they reach the age of two years, or just as they are 
getting into the beginning of the third year, say at twenty-five 
months of age, the muscles of mastication change, the mouth cavity 


INFANT MALADIES. 


415 


is larger, the oesophagus is wider, the salivary glands more power¬ 
ful, the saliva is secreted in greater quantity, the stomach takes a 
new shape, the intestinal canal elongates and is more capacious; 
and everything about the digestive system indicates an adaptation 
to other kinds of food, even including the animal solids. These 
changes are decided, and not such as come from progressive growth. 
They seem to come about rather suddenly, and by a concerted 
action. 

24 . It is now apparent that starchy foods may be taken in an 
unmalted condition; that fruits may be eaten, that some vegeta¬ 
bles may be introduced, that eggs and meats may be employed as 
part of the diet, and a start made toward the diet of the adult. 

25 . Children should have five meals a day in their third year 
and for a part of the fourth; and should have four meals a day for 
the next ten years, or until the age of puberty. These meals must 
be arranged to suit their needs and hunger. It is perhaps a cause 
of trouble to feed a boy or girl four times a day, but a mid-after¬ 
noon meal at about half way between twelve o’clock and six will 
solve the whole difficulty. Half-past three is a good time for a 
mid-afternoon lunch. The best hours for children’s meals are 
these. If breakfast is taken at eight o’clock, have dinner sharp at 
twelve, not a minute later; and then the mid-afternoon lunch at 
half-past three; and the supper at quarter past six. If breakfast 
is had at seven o’clock or earlier, have dinner at twelve, but change 
the afternoon lunch to that of morning, at half-past nine o’clock, 
and omit it in the afternoon. These hours have been thoroughly 
tested, and if the food is of the proper kind the results will be 
very satisfactory. Even for grown persons, four meals a day are 
better than three, if they are taken at the times just stated. The 
now prevailing habit of taking the fourth meal after the theatre 
or late in the evening, is reaping the greatest harvest of disease 
ever known. 

26 . Children should never be hurried when at the table; nor 
should they be allowed to play with their food. There should be 
a clear rest from eating of two and a half hours before any meal, 
during which rest not a particle of food or dainties or fruit or 
other thing, except water, should enter the stomach. The child 
should never be allowed to see food that it is not to have, especially 
if it is rich and indigestible. This does not refer to the usual 
variety on the table from which it is to have its seclection made, 


41G SPECIAL TREATMENT No. T W E N T Y - T H R E E . 


but means that tempting things are not to be placed before it to 
divert its relish from what it ought to have. 

27. The child should not be compelled to eat against its will. 
Often there is trouble with its mouth which is not properly cleaned 
and treated; and more often the food given it is not seasoned or 
prepared so as to be inviting to the taste. Let every dish set 
before a child be tasted by the parent, and flavored to suit the 
palate. Flat soups and other foods are too often given to the child 
only to nauseate it. 

28. In warm weather a child needs about one-fourth less food 
and more water than in winter. When it droops or is not hungry, 
its food should be more diluted in form and less in quantity. 

STARCHY FOODS FOR CHILDREN.—The first introduction 
of starchy foods is in the form of white bread. Do not give it the 
crusts; have them carefully trimmed. Have the bread made at 
heme, baked two hours, made from yeast, and kept one or two days 
before being eaten. Bread is the staff of life; and if all parents ate 
more of it in this way, and learned to depend on it as the main 
food, there would be much less sickness. We know that young chil¬ 
dren may be taught to become very fond of bread that is two days 
old; and, once the appetite has been formed, it will grow for that 
food. Do not give it anything to eat on the bread but good butter, 
except as varied hereinafter. 

If you cannot make bread in the way stated, hire some neighbor 
to bake it for you, and see what goes into it. Even if you pay 
double price for it, remember that one loaf of equal weight of such 
bread is valued as worth more than ten loaves of baker’s bread; be¬ 
sides saving the doctor’s bill and the after worry. 

This kind of bread becomes the basis of many dishes that the 
child will like; some of them being as follows.: 

Toasted bread. Milk toast. Cream toast. Bread crumbs broken 
in milk. Bread crumbs broken in egg. Bread crumbs broken in 
cream. Small squares of toasted bread broken in milk. Same 
in eggs. Same in cream. Same in broths. Same in soups. Same 
in stews. 

Avoid crackers and milk, and give bread and milk in bowls as 
often as there seems to be a relish for it; for cow’s milk can be 
taken care of by the system of the child after two years of age, 
if there is other food with it. Bread is really the staff of life, and 
is eaten by adults three times a day for 365 days in the year. Let 


INFANT MALADIES. 


417 


the child learn to depend largely upon it. Let the long bake 
bread, kept for two days, and made as stated, be employed in as 
many forms as possible, to the exclusion of cakes, cookies, and all 
those things that have held high carnival in disease for all these 
generations. 

Many excellent combinations of this kind of bread with nearly 
all ways of cooking eggs may be made; and parents can give each 
one a name that will please the child, and there will be the look¬ 
ing for it, and the enjoyment of it as though it were different in 
fact from all its associates. 

During the age of fifteen months to two years, the yolks of eggs 
cooked so as to remain soft, may be given once a day spread with 
very little salt on old bread that has been soaked in new milk. 
The salt must be hardly noticeable in taste, yet must be used. 

Beef tea may be begun at the age of one year; and beef juice 
spread on old bread may be given once a day at that age. Baked 
potatoes, if very mealy, and free from their jackets, may be given 
with milk and salt on them in very slight quantity; this food being 
good from the twelfth month to any age. 

Baked potatoes are much more wholesome than those cooked in 
any other way, and they are more easily digested. The potatoes 
should be of good size, but in the best of condition, free from 
sprouts, and not off color in the skin. After baking them, they 
should be mashed, and may be prepared in many ways for infants 
from the age of one year up. Here are some combinations. 

Mashed baked potatoes with butter.—Mashed baked potatoes 
with milk and salt.—Mashed baked potatoes moistened with four 
tablespoonfuls of beef tea.—Mashed baked potatoes with junket, 
and many ways of toasting them after they have once been baked 
and mashed, by adding some form of egg, with and without bread. 

Junket is a combination of sugar and milk that is very easy to 
digest, and the taste of which, when once acquired, is always rel¬ 
ished by children. It is made by taking a pint of sweet milk and 
adding a little sugar; then heating it until blood warm, and stirring 
in two teaspoonfuls of essence of rennet, which can be obtained at 
any drug store. After it has formed a curd, it should be set away 
on ice and taken when ice cold. The sugar will not be likely to 
cause ferment owing to the effect of the rennet; but if it does, it 
will be well to get milk sugar, or lactose, and use in its stead. 

27 


418 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-THREE. 


Cane sugar in any form is apt to cause some ferment in the sys¬ 
tem of any child or adult; but milk will take up a small quantity of 
such sugar and overcome the tendency to ferment. When lactose 
is used, although it is not so sweet as cane sugar, there is never a 
tendency to ferment; and this may solve many of the questions of 
cooking foods and puddings with milk and sugar or with cream and 
sugar. 

Adults who object to milk because it contains so much water or 
turns to curd, will find junket a substitute possessing all the advan¬ 
tages and none of the disadvantages of milk. It is also the best 
food for invalids, especially in such maladies as typhoid fever. 
The practice of spicing junket to give it a better flavor should 
never be adopted, for the nutmeg and cinnamon used are indigesti¬ 
ble and will in time drive away the natural taste for it. 

Children are very much fonder of junket if it is sprinkled with 
an extra bit of lactose after it is ice cold. It is the most digestible 
form of milk, and one of the most nourishing of all kinds of food. 
Like bread it may be eaten three times a day after the taste for it 
has been acquired; but care should be taken to have it well made 
and served ice-cold. Nearly all of the wholesome foods are made 
unpalatable by indifference in cooking. Take for instance the many 
forms of eggs, soups, broths, etc., and these may be made as flat 
and mean to the taste as moldy bread; yet, on the other hand, 
where skill and knowledge are used, they may all be so cooked as 
to be most inviting. We have seen these best products of nature 
thrown at the eater in slops and slams, with never a care as to how 
they tasted; and this has convinced us that the use of high season¬ 
ing and rich sauces is only the covering up of the meanest kinds 
of cookery. The fancy cooks and chefs are those who are allowed to 
conceal the real taste beneath false flavors. 

This practice is fraught with dangers. 

Tainted meat, old, dirty mutton, stinking lamb, offensive viscera, 
and a long list of smells that would offend the nose were they 
served in their honest condition, are dealt out in restaurants and 
hotels, as well as in boarding houses, dusted with black pepper, 
which will make anything mean taste well; or they are gravied 
over, or dosed with condiments until all the bad is buried within 
the surface. It is there in all its dangers, but the palate is tricked 
by the so-called skilled fancy cook or chef. No wonder the age is 
rapidly falling into the abyss of universal disease. 


Infant Maladies. 


419 


Rice is another article that is suited to children, and can be made 
in many forms, with or without milk. 

Rice is much more wholesome when buttered, or when served 
with milk and salt. In the use of butter it should be taken when 
hot, and spread lightly with the butter, the rice being laid out over 
a large surface so as to avoid a thick heaping of it which cannot be 
reached with the butter. 

Whole wheat breakfast foods are good for children after they 
are three years old; but the only form is the cracked wheat, and 
this should be strained so as to remove the coarser parts; and the 
portion to be eaten should be spread out on a pan and toasted in 
a hot oven, but not browned. Before this is done the wheat should 
be cooked for a full hour, never any less. It may be cooked for 
several days ahead, and wheat is to be toasted just before the meal. 
Be careful that it is not turning sour, or that there is no mold on it; 
for mold is a violent poison for all persons, and esepcially for 
children. 

This whole wheat food should be bought in hulk, and never in 
package. When it is cooked and toasted, it may be served with 
milk and salt, or with butter; but never with sugar. If preferred 
cream may be used, but the salt should be very light in quantity. 

Avoid crackers, biscuit, cakes, all store cakes and fancy biscuit, 
all breakfast foods except what has just been prescribed, oatmeal, 
barley, and foods not specifically allowed herein. Oatmeal will 
bring out humor on the skin, and barley is too rough, unless you 
can get the pearl barley such as comes in bulk. 

Old bread must be eaten at every meal in some form or other; 
and milk should be a constant stand-by up to the age of fifteen, 
either as plain milk, or in the form of junket. There has never 
yet been a perfectly healthy stomach that will reject good milk 
when properly served. Its best forms are these:—TsTew and warm; 
or, instead, in junket; or, instead, milk and rice, or milk and bread 
crumbs, or milk and cracked wheat cooked as we have stated; or, 
instead, milk poured over cracked ice and drank as poured so as 
not to allow the water to come into it from the melting of the ice. 

Meats are first given to infants in the form of beef juice, beef 
extracts, beef broth, mutton broth, chicken broth, scraped beef 
that is almost raw, and any of these are good from the latter part 
of the first year up to the age of five years; when meat itself may 
be eaten, if the surface, the skin, the crisp outside, and all other 


420 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-THREE. 


forms of the cooking or exposed parts are omitted. Re-cooked meats 
are unfit for all humanity; and especially so for children. 

Green peas, green beans, young beets, asparagus, lettuce, celery 
and cantaloupes are the products of the kitchen garden that may 
be given to children after they are two years old, provided they 
have no intestinal trouble. All fruits that are good for adults 
are likewise good for children, except bananas. Skins, peels, seeds, 
and pulp should not be swallowed. The only value in fruit for any 
person, young or old, is in the juice, and that is all that nature 
intended to be used. 

Drinking water should be looked after at all times. Some ice 
is not good for melting in water; much of the water is bad because 
of minerals and chemicals in it; and there are often contaminations 
in the clearest looking water. Watch and change the water as soon 
as there is any intestinal trouble. 

No child .under fifteen should ever be given tea, coffee, beer, 
wine or any drink except pure water, milk, hot or cold malted milk, 
plasmon cocoa, spring water, butter-milk, hot-water milk, lemonade, 
bran-water and bran-lemonade. 

Here are eleven drinks that are allowable, and they ought to be 
enough. Spring water is one form of pure water. 

The habit of giving coffee to children is very bad; that of giving 
tea is worse; and that of giving beer is the act of a person who has 
neither sense or fitness for having charge of human beings. Some 
years ago we saw a mother give beer regularly at meals to her five 
children, all under ten years of age. A friend remonstrated with 
her at the time, and she said in reply that it was a custom with the 
Germans to give beer to their young, that these children were hers 
and she could do what she pleased with them. In reply it was said 
that the German custom arose at a time when beer was pure; but 
the beers made in this country contain more than 100 adulterants 
that are poisons, and even the systems of adults are breaking down 
through the use of them. Desiring to know what kind of men and 
women such beer-fed children made, we had the family watched for 
many years; and all the children are now dead except one, who is a 
horrible sight to look upon. 

Flabby flesh is a disease; and beer produces no other kind. 

We have given this amount of attention to the consideration of 
the diet of children because this one branch alone has more to do 
with their health or sickness than all other causes combined. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 24 



THE THIRTEENTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREAT¬ 
MENTS. 

Meningitis.—There are three forms of inflammation of the 
meninges, or membranes which cover the brain and spinal cord. 
These diseases are known as cerebral, spinal and tuberculosis of 
either; but the medical division applies the terms acute, chronic 
and tubercular to the membranes affected. Popularly the name 
cerebro-spinal meningitis is understood to mean the infectious 
malady which will sometimes appear in a locality and defy all 
efforts to check it. Even the most skilled specialists are power¬ 
less in its presence. The death rate exceeds ninety per cent.; an 
almost unprecedental fatality in disease. The malady never touches 
a person of good vitality; its ravages occur among the weak, 
the careless and indifferent individuals; or with those who are 
prostrated by other illness. Prevention is the only method of 
absolute safety. 

This affliction is probably founded upon a germ that is bred in 
dirt and fostered by foul air. It is really a carbon dioxide dis¬ 
ease, for in places where the breaths of other people have to be 
inhaled the disease thrives the most vigorously. 


(421) 


422 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-FOUR. 


In houses and rooms where several persons live or sleep and 
where there is little space, the most danger may be found. Bankers 
sometimes suffer from it by reason of the great number of people 
they meet and talk with, often in close conversations. It would 
seem from all that is known of the disease that the union of two 
classes of germs might be the necessary foundation. 

Following other acute attacks, such as measles, scarlet fever, 
small-pox, etc., or complicating almost any severe illness, it is the 
natural outcome of a period of close confinement where pure air 
has been denied. The breaths of attendants have been inhaled, 
and the already weak constitution or depleted vitality yields to 
the invasion of another disease. That this is so is clearly proved by 
following the methods employed in caring for the sick. The larger 
the room, the sweeter the air, and the less contaminated the pa¬ 
tient is by unnecessary visitors, the less likely will meningitis be 
to follow any other illness. 

Its natural enemy is pure air and plenty of it. Where there is 
a tendency to this malady there can be no better plan of regime 
than that stated in the sunlight division of our treatment for con¬ 
sumption in this book. 

As the issue is so often fatal it is useless for us, in a preventive 
treatment, to enter into the discussion of what to do under the 
circumstances of an attack of meningitis. But, for the purposes of 
prevention, there can he no surer plan than to cultivate cleanli¬ 
ness in all things, and live as much as possible in the pure air. Re¬ 
member that when two or more persons sleep in the same room or 
are associated in their waking hours, the foundation may be laid. 
Large, clean, sunny rooms furnish the best living and the best 
sleeping places. 

If these suggestions are followed there will he nothing to fear 
from this disease, for it will not come. 

The vitality must be kept at its best, and this is done under the 
plan of high regime, with which you are already familiar. 

The plan of cleanliness suggested in the treatment for infant 
maladies will save many a case of meningitis. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Bights Beserred, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 25 



♦ Mental Breakdown 




THE FOURTEENTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREAT¬ 
MENTS. 

The brain, at least in man and the higher animals, is the seat 
of consciousness and intelligence; these disappear when its blood 
supply is cut off, as in fainting; pressure on parts of it, as by a 
tumor or by an effusion of blood in apoplexy, has the same result; 
inflammation of it causes delirium, and when the cerebral hemi¬ 
spheres are unusually small, idiocy is observed. The brain has, 
however, many other important functions. Experiment makes it 
probable that thinking faculties are dependent on the fore brain, 
while the rest of the complex mass has other, non-mental, duties. 

The conditions of rest and nutritive renovation of the mind’s 
organ are provided for in the mechanism of the solar system, by 
which the quietude of night, darkness and silence alternates with 
the stimulation of light and day. The recovery of its tone through 
nutritive repair undoubtedly takes place in the brain during the 
suspension of its functional activity in sleep. That sleep should 
be sound in quality and sufficient in quantity is one of the first 
conditions of mental health and vigor, and the want of it, as all 
have observed, reacts powerfully upon the state of the feelings. 

(423) 





424 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-FIVE. 

The ill effects of insufficient sleep may be witnessed on some of 
the principal organic functions, but it is the brain and nervous 
system that suffer chiefly and in the first instance. The conse¬ 
quences of a very protracted vigil are too well known to be mis¬ 
taken; but many a person is suffering, unconscious of the cause, 
from the habit of irregular and insufficient sleep. One of the 
most common effects is a degree of nervous irritability and peev¬ 
ishness, which even the happiest self-discipline can scarcely control. 
That buoyancy of the feelings, that cheerful, hopeful, trusting 
temper, which springs far more from organic conditions than from 
mature and definite convictions, gives way to a spirit of dissatis¬ 
faction and dejection, while the even demeanor, the measured ac¬ 
tivity are replaced either by a lassitude that renders any exertion 
painful, or an impatience not very conducive to happiness. 

All irritability, dark moods, meanness, hatred and desire for 
revenge will destroy the mind’s health as well as lay the founda¬ 
tion for disease, and on this down grade all persons travel willingly, 
if at all. The brain is agitated by every emotion. Many a per¬ 
son has brought on headache and some a fit of insanity by yield¬ 
ing to anger. As is well known, the stomach is directly con¬ 
nected with the brain—so closely, indeed, that an unpleasant 
thought stops digestion. An unhappy person has no appetite. 
Anger causes the stomach to recoil against food. A morose person 
absorbs bile into the blood, and chronic melancholy is the result. 

There is nothing in our dispositions or emotions that we can¬ 
not help as long as our brain is sound. When we cross the line 
into insanity we then become irritable. The person who inherits 
the disposition to hate mankind is not of sound mind, nor can cor¬ 
rectness of judgment, evenness of mental operations, or fairness 
and justice repose in one who finds it easy to hate or seek revenge. 

1. Where punishment is publicly certain, a person will not 
yield to the so-called fits of temporary insanity. 

2. Even insane people know something, and absolute certainty 
of punishment deters their acts of violence in many cases. 

Despondency is a voluntary veiling of the mind which tends 
to dry up the fluids of health; and no department of the body is 
more dependent upon healthful fluids than the brain. 

If the down grade is a voluntary one, so the up grade to a sunny 
disposition must be a willing one. Of course we know that it is 
easier to be ugly and revengeful than happy and bright, but dia- 


MENTAL BREAKDOWN. 


425 


monds do not fall from the sky like rain; they must me sought. 
There are ways of growing into a cheerful disposition, and they are 
founded on laws as certain as mathematical rules. 

1. Never look on the dark side of anything. 

2. If there is but one side to a thing, and that is all dark, try to 
imagine what the other side would be, if it had one. 

3. Never take anything for granted. 

4. Never draw conclusions from circumstances. This leads to 
more unhappiness in the world than any other failing in human 
nature. 

5. Never allow a suspicion to enter the mind. Business men 
think it is necessary to suspect all persons with whom they deal, 
on the principle that it furnishes a safeguard against fraud; but if 
you never take anything for granted, you will never be cheated, 
and this may be done without entertaining any suspicions. 

6. Study your fellow-beings with a view to finding out their 
good qualities. 

7. Never advise a person to avoid speaking ill of others while 
you yourself do not follow the advice. 

8. Read good books, think good thoughts and lead pure lives. 

9. Make up your minds that a kind disposition is attainable 
only by watchful care, and then resolve to drive ill-natured thoughts 
out of your mind forever and forever. 

These remarks are made because irritability is the first step in 
mental breakdown; and it is a voluntary condition. In order to 
avoid its approach you must have some plan to follow. If you 
resolve to check all those influences that lead up to irritability, you 
will invariably take the opposite line of conduct. 

The loss of sleep is another of the causes of mental breakdown; 
and, like irritability, it comes as a herald of the danger. It comes 
first; that is, it precedes the mental breakdown; but it comes with 
unerring certainty. The fight must now be shifted to this battle¬ 
ground. No better or surer plan can he adopted than that set 
forth in the treatment for insomnia. We also advise the use of 
the treatments of self-magnetism and memory, for weakness in 
these respects must be overcome. 

The third step in mental breakdown is the loss of memory, just 
referred to. The first faculty to go is memory; and it can he very 
easily proved that the non-use of the various kinds of memory, 
especially what is known as portative, leads to atrophy (waste) of 


426 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-FJVE. 

the brain-tissue throughout a great part of the brain. This waste 
is a partial breakdown of the organ, a weakening of the mind, and 
a softening of the very fiber that should he toughest and most en¬ 
during. The practice of the memory exercises, such as we furnish 
in our emoluments, is one of the pleasantest things that can be 
engaged in; and nature imperatively demands that they be kept 
alive if the mind it to retain its power. With such exercises, any 
man or woman can retain full memory up to the day of death. 
Most persons of fifty are weak in memory. Some in their twenties, 
or thirties, have deficient memory. 

What can be sadder? With the loss of memory, all the pleasant 
recollections of youth pass away. The faces of friends are half a 
blank, and friendships crumble into the dust of oblivion. Love is 
dead fruit. What is the hope of life to humanity, here or here¬ 
after, if the memory fails to recall the faces, forms, friendships and 
loves that have endeared people to each other in this world. 

No faculty should die. No faculty will live if disused. You 
cannot keep senses alive if you give them nothing to do. Nor will 
the powers of the mind and body survive the wreck of the decades, 
if they are allowed to rust. 

The secret of a vigorous mind, one that can never know collapse, 
is found in the two-fold proposition which we will state as follows: 

A. Varied activity. 

B. Deep uses of the brain tissue. 

Under the first part we find that the whole story of varac must 
be told, and we have not the space here to fully tell it, for it in¬ 
volves a large book. But it may be outlined in the table which 
we had once published and which is now out of print. 

The perfect health of the body depends on the life of every 
class of brain cells, and their constant communication with all parts 
of the human organism. We recall the case of a man who started 
life with a desire to accumulate a million dollars. He opened a 
retail shoe store when he was only sixteen years old, having some 
cash from his father to begin with. He devoted himself to nothing 
but the spread of that business; and, at the age of forty, he owned 
the largest store of its kind in the city; and he was well on toward 
his million. He was cited to us as the case of a man who could de¬ 
vote himself to one idea and succeed. We said that he might be the 
one case in five thousand, but even then that, as he was abusing the 
greatest of all laws, varied activity, his brain would pay the penalty. 


MENTAL BREAKDOWN. 


427 


At forty-five, with grown children, and with a beautiful wife, and a 
grand home, and all that wealth could bring to them, this man was 
still devoting his mental energies to the one idea of making money. 
Then his eyes took on a peculiar look; the unused brain-cells were 
passing into paresis, which would soon involve the whole brain 
tissue; and this man, who had all to live for, whose parents still 
lived hale and hearty, had to go home and linger for years in a 
state of mental forgetfulness, while the clouds of paresis, or brain 
softening, were slowly closing in on him. 

In a person of health, the brain cells are renewed every day in 
countless hordes of millions upon millions, which are broken down 
by thought, feeling and action, and at once rebuilt so as to keep 
them whole and vital. This process also tends to strengthen and 
enlarge the brain and its power of thought. If these brain-cells 
are not made to break down, they will decay, soften and atrophy, 
or waste away; memory fails; judgment lags; ideas get fixed, and 
the mind cannot originate or resist mental processes; and the body 
begins to fall prey to disease. 

If you are in good health, every time you lift your finger, there 
are countless brain cells that die in the effort; every time you think, 
another part of the brain takes on loss and renewal of life; and 
every time the heart beats well, or the stomach acts, or the skin 
opens and closes its pores, in their usual function or the intestines 
sway in peristaltic waves to carry the bulk of their contents on¬ 
ward ; or work is done with mind or muscles; some corresponding 
part of the brain is employed and rebuilt; thus keeping all the 
body active; for, you know, when the brain is paralyzed, the body 
is dead in whole or part. There are over thirty diseases that are 
due to nothing but the faulty or warped action of the brain. Dia¬ 
betes is one of these. Locomotor ataxia is another. Meningitis 
is another. Indigestion is often due to what the brain thinks. A 
great disappointment stops the stomach and even the saliva is 
dried up; for the brain cells feed all parts of the body; and no 
part can do its work when the cells in the brain are dead or inactive. 
This is a well known law. 

It is well known that the whole body is a collection of proto¬ 
plasm cells, that each contains a nucleus, etc., and these little in- 
telligencies, added to each other all through the body, make up the 
mind and spirit. They concentrate in the brain; and from that 
organ there radiates millions of little nerves that run to every part 




428 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-FIVE- 

of the body. These nerves feed the brain, and the brain keeps in 
harmony and touch with all parts of the body. Thus, if any of 
the feeding nerves become dead or paralyzed through a long period 
of inactivity, the brain cells which they lead to become soft and die. 

A man who had reached the age of eighty and who was still a 
power in his profession, was asked the secret of his great mental and 
physical faculties, which were undoubtedly as bright and as strong 
as most men’s at forty. He replied: “I have found that every 
person possesses many faculties, and that they are likely to rust 
from lack of use. Rusted faculties warp the brain, and a warped 
brain is a curse to an old person, as well as to one in middle life. 
My rule is a simple one: If you wish the best health, keep all 
your faculties active; and this means to indulge in a great variety 
of mental and physical interests. I do not mean to do too much 
on the physical side, for that is hurtful in old people; but I be¬ 
lieve that the whole body, mind, muscles and heart interests, must 
be kept active. This is nature’s plan.” And he was right. 

The secret then is to employ the mind in as many useful de¬ 
partments of life as possible. Add new duties and new respon¬ 
sibilities each day. You cannot accomplish much until your work 
is crowded, for then it is necessary to work under the excitement of 
a special energy. Leisure is the enemy of mental strength. 

The second part of the secret is the deep uses of the brain-tissue. 
Any form of reading that merely interests will reach only the sur¬ 
face of the brain. The magazines, the papers, the novels, these 
all make shallow minds and weak energies. They have their 
place, like dessert at the table; but a meal of all dessert is unwhole¬ 
some. 

Something must be done to tax the mind, or the thought will 
never get under the surface. If worry eats the way under at one 
part only, the brain cells will break down from exhaustion. This 
can be prevented by having other mental interests to take up the 
attention; but if your day of mental work has been merely what 
has interested and pleased you, you will have no other deep places 
in the brain where you can seek the balancing action of the mind 
in overcoming worry. With a hundred different things to think 
of you could worry in the whole lot as much as you pleased, and 
not one of them would go deep enough or remain long enough in 
one part of the brain to exhaust it. In fact, the man or woman who 
can scatter the ideas over which they worry would save such ex- 


MENTAL BREAKDOWN. 429 

haustion in any one place. It is concentration that wears holes 
in the mind. 

By a faithful adoption of the foregoing principles every mind 
can hold its strength until the end of a long and useful life. 

The brain must be used as you would use the body. The greater 
the variety of its occupations and activities the better will be the 
health. But frequent rests are required for both body and mind. 
That which tires should be pursued only for a brief while, and 
should then be followed by brief rests. The same is true in walk¬ 
ing; if a few rods tire the body, rest, then resume the walk, then 
rest again, and so continue for hours. Endurance is acquired in 
this way. Study should be intervened with a hundred little rests 
if only half a minute at a time. But stick to the deeper work of 
the brain if you wish to avert mental breakdown. The deepest 
of all studies is mathematics, and the most disliked because it 
requires depth of mind, which so few have to give to it. The 
reading of novels and the study of subjects that deepen the mind 
will not mix well, unless each has its allotment of time and op¬ 
portunity. But the more you deepen the mind the less inclined 
you will be to use it for shallow purposes, and the more you use 
it for the latter the less inclined you will be to take up any deepen¬ 
ing subject like that, for instance, of Universal Philosophy. 

One of the best bits of advice ever given in cases of this kind 
is that of a man who had passed through the dangers of breakdown 
early in his forties and who arose out of it to the greatest heights 
in the business world where the tax on the vitality of brain and 
nervous system is most severe. He said that he found no relief 
from any source until he ascertained that he was exercising no 
power over himself. This idea has been carried into effect with 
the very best success. 

As a test of its efficacy suppose you try it. Are you giving your¬ 
self up to some small temptations that are not very important, 
yet show how much control you really exert over yourself ? A man 
may be addicted to some habit that he knows does a slight injury, 
but that does not really hurt his health; if he sets his mind to the 
task of stopping it and cannot, he is in the condition of mental 
breakdown. The fight must be made where the weakness shows 
itself. 

That this law holds true is seen from a few reports from persons 
to whom we have sent instructions along this line. A woman 


430 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-FIVE- 


says: “ I had reached that stage where I could not sleep nights. 
Acting on your suggestion I tried to stop the use of candy on an 
empty stomach, which undoubtedly kept my whole body out of 
peace with my nerves. I used to eat candy just before my even¬ 
ing dinner and before going to bed for the night. I could not 
easily give it up. I tried and failed. I then found that my head 
was getting so bad that I had visions of various means of com¬ 
mitting suicide. I put all my soul into the resolve to conquer 
myself, and I fought that candy habit. I failed, not so often, but 
about once in every two times. I had some confidence in myself, 
and fought still harder, not the big condition, but the little temp¬ 
tation; for a straw tells which way the wind blows. At length 
I was able to put away this little fault, I ate no more candy at 
any time, for I loved to see what real control I had over my 
mind; and the result was that I acquired the habit of sleeping 
soundly, and the visions all went from me.” 

The same law has worked out in the other cases reported. A 
number of men had habits that they could not readily shake off, 
such as gambling in a social way, following the races, speculating, 
using more tobacco than was good for the nerves, drinking, nipping 
liquor, etc., and they found that, in exact proportion as they had 
the power to conquer these little straws, they also brought the 
brain-tissue into its true resistance to disease, visions of suicide 
and contemplations of ill or evil forebodings. 


jTrom Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Bights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 26 



THE FIFTEENTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

This affliction may follow a disease that has left poisons in the 
system, or may attend such disease, or may result from the use of 
alcohol and any one or more of a score of drugs that are in common 
use. 

It may also attend childhood, appearing in babes of a few months 
or a few years of age. It is not then dangerous, and its treatment 
and prevention depend almost entirely on bringing the system up to 
a high state of health, such as following the diet given in the treat¬ 
ment for infant maladies in this book. 

Ordinary paralysis is the exhaustion or running down of the. cur¬ 
rent of life, just as the electric battery runs out when its supply is 
not renewed. This exhaustion may be caused by interference with 
the vital currents of the body, as when a nerve is cut, or is injured;, 
or the brain is subjected to some shock which reaches out into the 
various parts of the body. It is also caused by the senile approach, 
such as we have described in the treatment entitled Aging. In the 
latter cases it affects some organ of the senses, as the sight, the hear¬ 
ing, smell, etc. 


(431) 




432 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-SIX. 


Anything that will cut off the supply of nerve flow will cause 
paralysis either permanent or temporary. Obstruction as well as 
exhaustion will do this. 

When the cause is one of obstruction it should be treated by the 
doctor, or more probably by the surgeon. But sometimes the wear¬ 
ing of tight clothing, of tight bands about the arms, or legs, or at 
the waist, will bring on the sleepiness that may result in the loss of 
power sooner or later. Sitting in cramped positions, or remaining 
in one attitude for a great length of time, may do like injury, as 
when one is riding in the cars on long journe}^. A preliminary 
warning is found in the habit of the foot, the arm, the hand or the 
leg in going to sleep, as it is commonly called. This warning should 
not be disregarded, for, like neuralgia, it has its message or notice 
to convey to each one to whom it comes. 

Heed it in time. 

Persons who think along one line of life, or whose duties are very 
narrow in variety, are the future victims of mental breakdown. 
Those who have a large variety of duties, and a crowd of work to 
do, and who burn the candle at both ends by losing sleep at night 
and refusing to rest by day, or who seek to add many senseless 
tasks to their volume of work, or who use stimulants, or who try 
to sustain life without heeding the demands of nature in 
their diet and regime, or who do the still more culpable thing of 
wasting their sexual energy, are the people who will fall prey to 
paralysis. Study this list over and see if it applies in any part to 
you. 

Frequent resting during the day, and giving up the activities of 
the evening will prevent exhaustion. From the time you have eaten 
your evening meal until you are ready to drop asleep in bed, you 
should allow nothing to take any of your strength. This means 
much, if you will examine the proposition. From the last meal of 
the day, which should be all over by half-past six, there should be 
nothing to tax the least of your vitality, neither of mind, or muscle 
or sexual strength. In the working hours of the day you should 
proceed only a short distance when you should stop and rest. Lying 
face down on a couch for a minute will help you. Also rest before 
each meal. On arising in the morning you may take fruit such as 
an apple, with some fresh milk sipped, and may then study or work 
with average energy as long as it does not weary you, provided you 
rest even if you do not seem to require it. 


PARALYSIS. 


433 


The early morning hours beginning with the time the sun rises all 
the year round, favor the vitality; but rising late when the sun is 
high, and retiring late, are injurious if there is a fear of paralysis. 
You need all you can get of the first two hours of the sunlight each 
day. 

Outdoor life favors a cure of the tendency toward this disease. 
Standing on the feet is also in line with a cure. Indoor life and 
sedentary habits are both hurtful. 

The plan of high regime which is given in your book of Inside 
Membership will be the best method of living. 

One of the most surprising effects that has ever come under our 
notice is the vitalizing bath that we have recommended for so 
many years. It has been found of the highest possible benefit in 
charging the nerves with vitality; and it alone has been able to 
prove by actual demonstration that the weakness of the currents 
is the cause of paralysis, although not always the direct agency. 

The vitalizing bath is not effective unless it is given due atten¬ 
tion in every detail. To almost do it right is to not do it at all. 
In the first place the body must be naked in a warm room, say 
where the temperature is over eighty-five, or around that degree. 
No water must be used on the lower part of the body, that is from 
the low waist position to the feet, until the upper half has been 
thoroughly washed in warm water that has been gradually made 
hot, so as to open the pores. As soon as this has been done, the 
upper part that has been so bathed should be dried with hot towels 
and made as warm as rubbing will do it. Do not hurt the skin 
by harsh chafing with the towels, but get it dry, warm and in a 
glow. 

Now comes the part that needs attention. 

As soon as the upper half of the body is dry, step into the 
bathtub in water that has been made ready, and is of tepid 
warmth. Bathe in this, then allow a cold stream of water to flow 
into the tub until the temperature is cool. By this time the blood 
will have rushed into the lungs and throughout all the vital 
organs and into the nervous centers around the spine, for the 
food of the nerves comes from the blood', as well as from pure air 
and sunlight. 

There is a slight danger in this method of bathing in case you 
have tendencies toward apoplexy, for the blood will rush to the 
head and bring undue pressure upon it. The prevention is to not 
28 


434 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-SIX. 

reduce the temperature of the water with which the lower half 
of the body is bathed. 

Then there is another danger. The glow that comes into the 
vital organs and through the spinal region is so great and so ex¬ 
hilarating that you will get the idea that you are overwarm; al¬ 
though you may have been quite cold before you put the cold 
water on the legs. This feeling of great warmth is due to the 
fact that the cold temperature about the legs has driven the 
blood in great quantities to the utmost parts, and into all the 
fine veins and capilaries where it is not accustomed to go except 
under unusual conditions. It thus brings new life to the heart, 
for that organ is hindered in its work by the failure of the ex¬ 
tremes of the body and the surfaces to do all their work in oxi¬ 
dizing the broken down waste material, and these come back upon 
the heart and nerves in the form of poisons, which alone might be 
the cause either of heart failure or of paralysis. It is this ex¬ 
hilarating glow that is a danger, for it will tempt you to take 
chances in a cold temperature after you have dressed. If you 
are about to retire for the night you will feel like throwing off the 
clothing from the bed, or like sitting about with insufficient 
dress on, and thus catch cold. 

The reaction is always healthful and requires you to look out 
for it by having plenty of clothes on, and not to go out into a cold 
air for several hours. 

The value to the nerves of this method of bathing is in the 
twofold fact that it brings a great amount of nutrition to the 
nerves, and at the same time drives out the poisons that set up 
conditions leading to paralysis. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 2 "7 



THE SIXTEENTH OP THE PREVENTIVE TREATMENTS. 

Pneumonia is one of the most common of the fatal diseases. It is 
often the result of other conditions than those which it sets up of 
itself. It takes away a far greater number of victims than con¬ 
sumption or any epidemic. In many ways it is the termination of a 
weak condition of the body, as it fills in the last stage between 
maladies and death. Thus the diabetic patient will either go to 
sleep in coma, or else will die of pneumonia. It is not the latter 
that produces death, but it is the form in which diabetes will seek 
an end. This is true of many other maladies. Pneumonia cannot, 
then, be called the cause of death so much as one of the means 
whereby other maladies come to an end. 

It is always the end of certain conditions of the body. Its direct 
action involves the presence of germs which attack the lung tissue 
and cause it to congest and become inflamed; with a discharge of 
the mucus and white corpuscles in the cells or cavities of the lungs 
themselves. These germs do not collect at once. They require years 
of growth and development, and feed on the accumulated deat in the 
body. The reason why they attack the lungs is that they there seek 
a means of exit through the open cells, just as mucus seeks to 

(435) 



436 special 'Treatment No. twenty-seVEN. 

escape through the membrane of the nose in nasal catarrh, or 
through the membrane of the throat in that form of catarrh. It is 
the effort of the accumulation to get through and out of the body, 
and it must seek avenues whereby it may make its escape most 
easily. 

If you think it helpful to know just what this process is, you 
should at this stage read the treatment for the cure of catarrh in 
this book. It will be very helpful in giving you a better under¬ 
standing of what is necessary in the present treatment. 

There must be two conditions precedent in the body before pneu¬ 
monia can be started. The first is the accumulation of deat. The 
second is the accumulation of the specific germs. In babes the deat 
is inherited from the mother’s own accumulation, but genuine 
pneumonia is not as frequent with them as is generally supposed. 
The disease is more common with men than with women, owing to 
the fact that the latter lose considerable of their accumulated deat 
in their menses; but women w T ho are not regular or who do not have 
full catamenia are likely to take pneumonia. A large number of 
cases confirm this fact, and also the theory of accumulated deat in 
the body. Fat men are more often the victims because they owe 
their fat in large part to the same accumulations; and it is an error 
to suppose that large lungs attract the malady. It is not the size 
of the lung capacity but the size of the deat piles in the body that 
settle the question. 

With the two conditions precedent established, the last step in the 
preparation is that of low vitality. This means the checking of the 
functions which seek daily to throw off a large share of the excess 
of deat, and to keep back the chained dogs which are known as the 
germs. Low vitality unchains them and sets them free, and they 
feed upon the deat, then set up colonies, and these at a given signal 
burst forth like vast armies of the enemy coming down in stealth 
on the stronghold of the body. 

There is no doubt that the germs are everywhere present; and, 
when one person fosters and increases them, others whose bodies 
are fit for their presence by being loaded with deat, will take them 
in and the malady will then become epidemic. This is true of la- 
grippe, as well as other contagions. 

When the body is chilled or exposed to drafts or dampness, the 
fags in the blood die in great numbers. They float to the lungs and 
there become debris or dead matter. The fags are the protectors 



PNEUMONIA. 


437 


of life, as it is their duty to devour and get rid of all germs that 
attack the body. The fact that they die in great numbers at the 
time of exposure to chilly temperature, or to drafts or to dampness, 
is proved by the microscope, using it before and then after the 
exposure. The manner has been explained heretofore. 

One of the precautions to start with is to educate vour mind to 
recognize the danger of such exposure. Most persons are not aware 
when they are taking such chances. They do not think there is any 
risk in standing in the doorway to say good-bye to a caller, or in 
standing on the sidewalk to converse, or sitting in or near an open 
window, or getting cooled off when heated, or wearing thin-soled 
shoes out of doors, or wearing slippers indoors, etc., etc. These 
exposures are only the matches which set off the magazine of pow¬ 
der ; but there must be the immediate ignition in order to make the 
explosion sure. 

The habit of taking chances should be trained into the habit of 
knowing and avoiding all such risks; and it is a matter of habit 
either way. 

But the conditions precedent should both be destroyed. They are 
the accumulations of deat and the increased masses of the germs. 
The deat should all be taken out of the system. The direct way to 
do this is to follow strictly the plan in the first of these Special 
Treatments, the anti-death method. To this add the high regime 
of the book of Inside Membership. The first treatment will remove 
all the accumulations of deat; and high regime will prevent more 
coming in. This dual plan does its work perfectly. There is no 
need of repeating these directions, as they involve so much matter. 
They are all in this book, and are conveniently at hand. They tell 
you what to do and give specific directions for every step of the way. 

The deat will thus be driven out, and no more will accumulate 
until you break over the laws of nature. 

To fight out the germs you must maintain a strong vitality. This 
is done by the practice of the exercises in magnetism, as stated in 
the book of the tenth degree under the Clan Guide. If we were to 
include that work in this, it would require another volume, so noth¬ 
ing is saved. All persons sooner or later procure that book, as there 
is no live Ralstonite who does not make known the advantages of 
Ralstonism to others, and this means the advancement of degrees, 
after which the book is given without expense. But all persons 
prefer to go to expense rather than to the grave with pneumonia. 


438 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-SEVEN. 

The lungs must be built up by such exercises as are given in the 
book Cultivation of the Chest. To include this work in the present 
treatment would require another volume. Books are sometimes like 
medicines; they are expensive. After you pay the doctor you have 
to meet the expense of medicines and attendants and other things, 
all of which will be much more cheerfully borne than if they were 
the cost of a funeral. But we hope that the many means of help in 
this book which you now have open before you will prove all that 
you need. The plan is as nearly perfect as anything devised by man 
can be. 

You own the book of Inside Membership; and in it you will find a 
brief but very effective system of breathing exercises, which will do 
much towards creating a strong vitality. The principle is that the 
lungs must be trained to a high state of development, the range of 
breathing increased to a large capacity, the cells all brought into 
play, the girth of the chest made much larger, and the amount of 
toxins and deat that is thrown off every hour must be as great as 
can be maintained. This plan has been in use by us for over twenty- 
five years; and, during that time, not one person has ever had pneu¬ 
monia or been afflicted with lung disease in any form. The question 
is: what is this security worth to a man or woman ? 

If there is an acute attack of pneumonia, the local physician 
should be called in at once. Until he comes the lungs should be 
cared for by making a vest of oiled silk, lined with an inch thickness 
of absorbent cotton, which is to be placed over the whole chest from 
the neck down to the ends of the ribs all around the body. It 
should stay on till it drops off some weeks later. If it comes off be¬ 
fore the danger seems passed, another should be made at once and 
put on. Early attacks in mild form should be treated with a coating 
one-eighth of an inch thick of antiphlogistine applied as hot as can 
be borne, and kept on for twelve hours, unless there is much sore¬ 
ness, in which case it should be changed every four to six hours. 

Statistics show that persons who have used alcohol or beer or 
wine, are more often the victims of a fatal termination than others. 
These are facts agreed to by doctors, even those who make use of 
alcohol or liquors in their practice. They advise against the use of 
such things in any case where there is a tendency to weak lungs. 
Not many such persons recover from the attack of pneumonia. 

The first great fact that escapes the observation of the physician 
is the reduced desire of the patient to breathe. Any physician who 


PNEUMONIA. 


439 


can reach the patient in the early stages of pneumonia will have no 
difficulty in effecting a cure on the following basis: 

The patient should be told that discouragement, pain and dif¬ 
ficulty in breathing always reduce the desire to breathe to the barest 
minimum on which life can be supported. This result is merely 
mechanical and is overcome by holding a full breath, while clinch¬ 
ing the fists. The patient should also be told that air dislodges 
phlegm in the lungs and bronchial tubes, rendering the progress of 
pneumonia impossible. It is a curious fact that while inhaling the 
air tends downward and only toward the middle or lower half of the 
lungs; but while exhaling it fills the upper cones of the lungs. In¬ 
deed, it is only during exhalations that the upper lungs are reached 
at all. Therefore, to fill the lungs full, close the nostrils with the 
thumb and finger, put a pipe stem in the mouth and blow hard while 
exhaling. This will not only drive air to the upper lungs, but will 
also expel phlegm. The result of oxygenation to the lungs from ad¬ 
ditional air gives new vitality, and this tends to cure any disease. 

Red pepper destroys the germs, and should be taken three times 
a day during the illness. If the lungs are filling or growing hard, 
the patient can do but little. Cracked ice should be, swallowed in 
very small pieces, and hot plates wrapped in cloth applied to the 
chest; and the red pepper should follow a few minutes after the ice. 
Touching the body on the back and front with a cloth wet in ice 
water, followed by a warm cloth, has caused the dislodgment of 
phlegm and led to a cure. The breath comes quickly if the body is 
chilled suddenly in a single spot. 

These few latter suggestions are made for use only in case the 
doctor cannot be had promptly. It is not our purpose to deal with 
the acute form, but to show the way of preventing the disease. We 
have succeeded in doing this for so many years, and so many lives 
have been spared by taking precautions in time that there is now no 
reason why there should ever be any deaths from pneumonia. 

As the means of prevention will accomplish a thousand times 
more good than a cure we will sum up the best suggestions as 
follows: 

1. The lungs should be made as active as possible in their 
respiration. This is done by cultivating the habit of deep and 
full inhalation and exhalation until it becomes a second nature. 

2. The body should be kept from the weakening influences of 
artificial heat as much as possible. When the cold has taken hold 


440 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-SEVEN. 


of the body the latter should be made over-warm and be over- 
clothed for the purpose of driving the conditions out of the system. 
But when there is no cold on, the body ought to be hardened by 
producing its own heat. The clothing should be abundant in 
cold weather, but not enough to cause perspiration by its excess. 
The living rooms by day and the sleeping rooms by night should be 
cool, so as not to bake the membranes of the nose and mouth where 
the malady first sets in. This does not mean the other extreme, 
for chilling winds, drafts, dampness and like conditions are all To 
be avoided. A well-clothed person needs seventy degrees of heat 
in winter, and a lightly-clothed one needs seventy-eight in summer. 

3. The system should be kept free from the accumulation of deat 
which arises from such foods as are forbidden in chapter twenty- 
one of the book of Inside Membership. It is a well-established 
fact that, when once the system is free from this accumulation and 
no more such food is taken, colds become almost an impossibility. 

4. The blood should be made to circulate all through the sur¬ 
faces of the body, for it is there that it does its perfect work of 
breaking down and burning up the poisons of the system. The sur¬ 
faces should be given mechanical exercise by the various kinds of 
action to which the skin may be subjected. All these important sur¬ 
face exercises may be found in treatment number eleven of this 
book. 


iTrom Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special ^Treatment 

NUMBER 28 



rqall-p©x 



THE SEVENTEENTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREAT¬ 
MENTS. 

We will open this treatise with the following facts taken from 
history and from statistics that do not admit of doubt: 

Small-pox is a germ disease. 

It is quite infectious. 

It consists in an eruption on the forehead, face and wrists, at¬ 
tended by rigor, fever, backache, headache, profuse perspiration, 
sickness and prostration. 

It can be traced back to the sixth century with certainty. 

Its origin is not known or even supposed. 

At the present day it arises only by exposure to the germs from 
some previous case. If it were once driven from the world it is 
probable that no new case would spring up, as it is not known to 
arise in any way except from a previous case. 

It touches both sexes equally. It is found all over the world, but 
most frequently in hot climates. 

All races of people are affected by its ravages, and where it is 
present for the first time among any community its fatality is most 
severe; whole tribes and settlements being wiped out. 

Negroes have suffered most from it of all the races. 


( 441 ) 


442 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-EIGHT. 

Its subjects are un-vaccinated persons or those who have been 
badly vaccinated. 

Statistics show conclusively that those who have been properly 
vaccinated escape it altogether; or, if they are attacked by it, have 
the malady in mild form and without serious results. 

Statistics also show conclusively that those who have not been 
vaccinated or who have been badly vaccinated are the only victims of 
the disease, except an occasional mild case referred to. 

Some wild men of this country have started the sensational cry 
that vaccination is wrong and useless. To show the kind of people 
who oppose vaccination, we quote from their letters; for you can 
always size up the mind and calibre of an individual by the kind of 
letter he or she is capable of writing. Here are some extracts; and, 
in printing them, we wish to apologize for the necessity of so doing: 
“ Your book qf Inside Membership approves of vaccination. 

Tommy rot! What in-makes you publish such stuff ? Andrew 

Foster.” This man is from Ohio. We give his name. Another 
man writes this way: “You curs who talk vaccination ought to be 
hung. Frederick K. Hanson.” Another letter contains the follow¬ 
ing : “ I never read anything from the Ralston books that hurt me 
so much as your approval of vaccination. You ought to have sense 
enough to know that vaccination is a crime. Folks who advocate 
such rot (here is the word rot again) are unfit to breathe.” These 
are sample letters that have come to us. We are glad to state that 
we strike off our books all such names, as we take pride in having 
sane and decent people in our Club. But the strange fact is that 
not one advocate of non-vaccination has ever expressed his beliefs 
in language that is used by sane human beings. 

We might drop the matter of this difference of opinion without 
further remarks, but it seems necessary to ask our members what we 
ought to do when a well settled principle is attacked with such 
venom by a class of people backed by a few physicians who evidently 
cater to the prejudices of the ignorant in order to get prestige 
among them. It has been said by a doctor that there were enough 
people of money in every large city, whose minds were so badly 
warped on great public questions, to support a physician who would 
cater to them and express himself in accord with their views. 

When the brain is so fearfully out of balance on one subject as to 
discard the facts that stand like a giant Gibraltar looming up to the 
zenith of the sky, it is probable that a calm judgment is impossible. 



SMALL-POX. 


443 


On the subject of vaccination the minds of some people are really 
aflame; and because some cases of vaccination have been botched by 
careless doctors. It is like pulling a drowning woman out of the 
surf; her rescuers catch her by the nose and ear, when they might 
have saved her by grasping the arms or shoulders. It is like taking 
a child out of the burning house, throwing it on a heap of rocks 
instead of letting it down gently into the waiting blanket. But, 
while these methods of saving life are clumsy and wrong, the princi- 
pie remains the same that the life should be saved. Would you 
advise the abandonment of the drowning woman? If so, then it 
would be the same in effect as abandoning the use of vaccination. 

It is not our theory; this idea of vaccination. It is not our work 
to vaccinate. We did not make the statistics. They are produced 
by the governments of the world, the nations that are in the most 
advanced rank of civilization. In this country these statistics are 
produced by all parties in power, whether democratic or republican, 
and in every State in the Union. They are agreed to by all the lead¬ 
ing men and women of all the States, and vaccination is made com¬ 
pulsory, not to please the governments, but to save your life and the 
lives of those about you, and of all who depend on the good judg¬ 
ment of those in power. If this compulsory vaccination were to be 
abolished, if people were to omit this simple precaution, a tidal 
wave of small-pox would sweep from one end of this land to the 
other and leave millions of homes in mourning. 

Now these are not our theories or our plan. They are the facts 
that exist. Colored preachers convince their followers that the sun 
moves around the world, that the earth is flat, and that this planet 
is the center of the stars, all of which revolve around it and the 
colored preachers. Facts have no value in their convincing argu¬ 
ments. Do not allow yourself to be in the same mental rank as 
those followers of the colored preachers. Facts rule the world and 
the universe. 

By this time you will be made aware that the Balston Club ad¬ 
vises vaccination as one of the best and most successful means of 
preventing small-pox. But clumsily done, or with impure virus, or 
under circumstances that do not favor health, it is not to be advised. 
At the instigation of a committee of men and women who wished to 
know if there was any danger in the operation or its after effects, 
took upon themselves the task of following the first one thousand 
cases that occurred next after the time of their organization. This 


444 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY-EIGHT. 


committee included persons who believed in vaccination, and others 
who had doubts of its efficacy but who were open to conviction. 

The cases were among all classes. Of the number, one thousand, 

each person vaccinated reported no danger and no disagreeable 
after effects; and not one has had an attack of the disease. On the 
other hand, out of one thousand cases of small-pox in various cities 
during a number of years, it appears that ninety-one per cent, had 
never been vaccinated at all, and the others had received improper 
attention when vaccinated or the operation had not been performed 
within a number of years. 

Let any honest person pursue the same line of investigation, and 
note the results. The field is an easy one and is open to all who 

seek the truth. Others have no right to hold or to express an 

opinion. 

With this as the basis of prevention of small-pox, what are the 
other steps to be pursued ? It is evident that the disease is the re¬ 
sult largely of conditions where uncleanliness prevails in the home, 
in the body and in the clothing. A house that is well kept, with 
rooms that are free from dirt, a body that is often bathed, clothes 
that are often washed, and food that is properly looked after in its 
preparation and keeping, these are the safeguards against small-pox. 

We are of the opinion that insects carry the germs. Flies, gnats, 
ants, mosquitoes, etc., may convey them from one person to another. 
But the common carriers are flies by day and mosquitoes by night. 
A number of experiments and observations tend to establish this 
fact. In homes that are well guarded from insects and that are kept 
clean, the small-pox does not enter under ordinary conditions. Flies 
abound all the year, even in mid-winter, and one fly can carry 
enough germs to spread the disease among a dozen families. The 
pimples or postules appear on no part of the body except the fore¬ 
head, the face and the wrists, all favorable places for the alighting 
of flies. But among negroes who go bare-legged, the sores appear on 
the legs as well as on the face, forehead and wrists. From these ex¬ 
terior parts of the body the germs are carried inwardly as far as the 
throat; and some of them may get there from food, for flies occupy 
all exposed surfaces of meat, bread, cake, etc., and these pass into 
the mouth and throat and take the germs with them. It is a notable 
fact that in almost all cases of small-pox the larynx or throat at the 
point of swallowing is affected with the same postules that appear 
on the forehead^ face and wrists. Occasionally some internal organ 


SkALL-PbX. 


445 


is reached by them, and that is explained by the fact that the blood 
carries the germs through all parts of the body. 

Flies can breed only in manure of some animal or human being. 
If care is taken to keep all.privies so covered as to keep the flies out, 
and to have no animal manure about the ground or in nearby 
stables, there would be almost no flies at all in the house. This fact 
has been fully proved by several trials of these precautions. As 
soon as any animal dropped manure near the house it is cleaned 
up. The privies are all indoors. The stables are kept disinfected 
with strong solutions of carbolic acid, and the result is that there 
are no flies about the premises or at the doors. Then screens are 
placed at all windows and doors, to keep out both flies and mos¬ 
quitoes. 

It is not alone the small-pox germs that are brought along by 
insects, but flies in particular carry many other germs of disease. A 
constant war should be made on them. 

These precautions will keep off many germs, and pay for the 
trouble taken by bringing greater security against all forms of dis¬ 
ease. 

There is a group of diseases that are clearly intended by nature 
as a punishment for uncleanliness; and small-pox is one of them. 
To a student of these purposes of nature, no subject could be more 
interesting or more fruitful in results than this. 

Uncleanliness is everywhere prevalent. It is in the homes, and 
roaches as well as other insects wander about in the dark and are 
unseen by day. There is no insect that does not carry germs of dis¬ 
ease. You can step into any home in this land and will stand nine 
chances out of ten of finding filth somewhere in the rooms, and 
even those places that seem most tidy are often only so to the eye 
of the casual observer. Dust and dirt are the bearers of contagions. 

Clothes are worn too long without changing. Undergarments 
are not renewed as often as they should be, and boils or tumors or 
other maladies follow. Outer garments are rarely if ever cleaned, 
and they have only to be examined under the microscope to disclose 
the burden of bacteria they carry. The face and hands are most 
often in contact with them, and it is at these exposed places that 
small-pox does its worst damage. Dirt may so weaken the resisting 
power of the skin that the germs may secure a hold, whether they 
come from flies, mosquitoes or other bearers of the bacteria. 

It has been observed that in homes and among people where 


446 speciar Treatment no. twentV-eight. 

genuine cleanliness prevails, this disease does not appear. Cleanli¬ 
ness is a medicine of nature that invites the power to resist disease. 

Another source of danger is in houses where there is sewer gas. 
This is not easily detected by the smell, but experts can readily 
discover its presence. Smal-pox, diphtheria, typhoid and other 
maladies have been more frequent in such homes than elsewhere; 
and this is due to the fact that such odors poison the blood and de¬ 
prive it of its power to build healthy tissue in the body. 

Toxins in the body are the food for the germs of small-pox; but 
they eat only one kind of toxins. When that kind is all devoured 
it takes two or more years to develop another supply of the same 
kind, and in some bodies it will take a whole lifetime. This ex¬ 
plains why a case of small-pox will not follow a case of the same 
disease within a certain space of time, and also why the virus of 
vaccination will prevent the disease by eating up the toxins and 
leaving no food for the real germs. 

This would indicate that the body must be cleared of all its deat, 
under the first treatment; for it is from deat that toxins are gener¬ 
ated. If you follow the suggestions of this treatment and give 
sincere attention to each and every requirement, we can guarantee 
that you will never be the victim of small-pox. 


t'rom Book of 1 Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 23 



THE EIGHTEENTH OF THE PREVENTIVE TREAT¬ 
MENTS. 

Typhoid fever is a germ disease that affects the bowels and either 
results in death or so affects the system as to do an irreparable in¬ 
jury. The malady is on the increase, the number of cases in this 
year of 1904 being nearly double those of the year before. The 
infection is travelling far and wide throughout this country. 

It is due to the use of water that is unfit to drink. 

While it may be communicated by other agencies, the chances are 
so largely in favor of drinking water as being the source of it, that 
you may safely set down this fact as absolutely true: You will some 
day have typhoid and you will get it from drinking water. It is 
not likely that you will escape the disease, for it is on the increase 
in all parts of the country. 

You may also set down one more fact: your dear ones will some 
day have typhoid. Why we say this is because the disease is increas¬ 
ing rapidly through all parts of the land. Only two weeks ago came 
the news that the disease was decreasing in a certain city, and to¬ 
day we read that twenty-four new cases have broken out, and there 

(447) 




448 special treatment no. twenty-nine. 


were five deaths yesterday; and the city is not a large one. It is on 
the increase. You and your loved ones can hardly hope to escape. 

You do not believe this statement? 

Why not? One year ago we made the same assertion and some 
friends laughed at us, and yet the malady came their way and some 
of them are sleeping in the quiet valley. It is everywhere on the 
increase. No city or town can long remain free from it. The germs 
are on the ground, are in the ground, are in the brooks, are in the 
rivulets, are on the landsides, are along the rivers, are in the yards 
where the wells are dug, are in the wells themselves; and any water 
that you take up will show by analysis that it is charged with the 
germs of typhoid. That is why you and your loved ones will fall 
prey to its ravages. It is on the increase everywhere. 

Whence comes your drinking water? From the well in your yard. 
But whence comes the water that supplies the well? From the 
ground itself. But from what part of the ground? You say from 
the under veins and lakes. Yes, if your well is very deep; but what 
about the water at the surface of the ground? What about the 
.higher veins that let the surface water through a few feet or yards 
below the top? There is where you get the typhoid germs. To 
protect the well, let it be very deep, say from sixty to two hundred 
feet, and have it cased up to the very surface of the ground with a 
steel or iron pipe five or six inches in diameter ; thus keeping out 
all surface drainage and not allowing any of the upper veins to drip 
water in the well. If you have not such a well, then we can guaran¬ 
tee that there are typhoid germs in the water. 

But you say you drink water from the reservoir. So they do in a 
thousand or more cities. But what is the water that flows into the 
reservoir ? It is the drainage of lakes or ponds, which means that it 
is the washing of all the droppings of scores of thousands of birds 
and insects, to say nothing of animals and humanity that may 
have been on the land. The idea that running water purifies itself 
applies only to masses of water in heavy streams. There is no pre¬ 
tence that the water that washes the filth from a field or sloping 
country into a pond or lake is purified in its course. Yet reservoir 
water is drawn from such sources. 

The best water to drink is rain water if it can be collected in a 
proper manner. We know that it is chemically pure when it leaves 
the clouds, as may be ascertained by examining snow, for the latter 
has no opportunity of absorbing odors and substance until it 


TYPHOID. 


449 


reaches the liquid state. As distilled water picks up poisons and 
odors as easily as do cream and milk, so rain water will do the same; 
but there is nothing deleterious in an elevated atmosphere free from 
smoke. When rain water is caught from the roof of a house, no 
matter how thoroughly the roof may be washed by the first hours 
of a storm, there is always something left which its absorbent 
activity will draw to itself, and it has a yellow color with a slightly 
astringent taste. This may occur even when the rain falls through 
the leaves of trees. That neither conditon is unwholesome is proved 
by the better health which comes from drinking rain water, although 
it is unpalatable at first. A taste for it is soon acquired, and it is 
then preferred to others. 

From the remarks just made, it will be seen at once that abso¬ 
lutely pure water is an active cleansing agent. If taken into the 
system before aeration, it becomes a scavenger and cleans up the 
poisonous matter, even too rapidly at times. If the face be washed 
in it, the skin is purified, and this simplest of simple remedies fur¬ 
nishes the best of complexions. The old idea of washing the face in 
rain water to make the skin clean and fair is founded upon this law, 
although rain water is not so active a cleanser as distilled water, 
because the former has been aerated. 

Let us look closely into the problems of securing pure water to 
drink. The first and best is the hardest to obtain. It is rain water 
filtered by Nature. The filter should be made of sand and rock. 
Occasionally such a spring is found, and, when known to be pure, 
every precaution should be used to save it for the benefit of man. 
A microscope should be owned by every physician, and one large 
enough to detect bacteria ought not to be beyond the purse of the 
humblest practitioner. If no doctor possesses a sufficiently powerful 
microscope, your school board should secure one as a means of public 
school education. Let the springs he examined for miles around; 
and, if one is discovered that proves to be rain water filtered through 
sand or rock, cement it up, shut off all surface drainage in case of 
rain, and allow it to flow in and out of a miniature reservoir. This 
will be the turning point in the health of the people in your com¬ 
munity. 

In addition to life in water, which may or may not be injurious, 
there must be a pabulum , or food for such life, and this is usually 
harmful to human blood. Bringing the water to the boiling point 
will destroy the living nature of the germs, but will not remove their 
29 


450 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TWENTY N i N E • 

carcasses nor change the pabulum; so that the use of boiled water is 
closely allied to the voracious devouring of a microscopic graveyard, 
sometimes including the gravestones themselves. Yet it is far better 
to take the carcasses than the living bodies. Our phrases are used 
in a somewhat figurative sense, yet they will be readily understood. 
Under altogether favorable conditions, it would not hurt man, and 
might possibly benefit him, to eat the live bacteria and their 
pabulum; but the chances are against it, and much of the prevailing 
debility and sickliness of humanity may be charged to the impure 
drinking water of the present age. La grippe attacks a blood condi¬ 
tion of the system that is caused by the poisonous pabulum in water, 
as well as by other agencies, and this la grippe is getting more fatal 
every year. 

If you have no better means of protection, be sure always to have 
the water boiled that you drink. It should then be iced, that is, 
placed where it can be kept ice-cold. 

If you can filter all drinking water, do so, using sand and char¬ 
coal dust through which to run the water; but be sure to boil and ice 
it afterwards. If you can get rain water, do that, and ice it. Keep 
it corked in tight bottles. If you can get distilled water, which is 
the same as rain water if it is allowed to stand in the open air for a 
few hours where there are no impurities, you should use that. When 
in doubt, boil and ice the water. Keep the bottles in which it is 
placed away from contact with dirt or the possibility of germs. 

The drinking water question is a much more important one than 
that of food; while both are of supreme importance. Your health 
and that of your family will be more influenced by what you drink 
than by what you eat. Yet both may kill you. 

Drink no strange water. Drink pure water and get certain 
knowledge that it is pure. If you obey this suggestion you will not 
have typhoid. If you take your chances, you are as sure of having 
typhoid as the night is sure of coming. 

At the same time drive all deat out of your system by the first 
treatment, and keep your vitality strong by practicing high regime. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 30 



The complexion is bad when the following conditions are found: 

When the skin is rough. 

When the face is yellow. 

When there are pimples or sores on the face, or a tendency to the 
same. 

A tanned face is in style in these days when the so-called upper 
classes are seeking to get a healthy covering direct from the burning 
sun. But faces that are not used to the severe heat of the solar 
rays are not benefited by sudden exposure. There should be a 
gradual adoption of the new conditions. When the face is tanned 
at a time that does not suit its ability to absorb the rays, the result 
is freckles. 

Leaving out the discussion of tan, as only a mark of outdoor 
exposure, we come to the direct discussion of what is known as a bad 
complexion; and this may involve the face and neck and their 
details such as the forehead, temples, cheeks, nose, lips, chin and the 
exposed base of the head from the place of juncture with the should¬ 
ers. It is these parts that are looked upon by those who see us, and 
that carry to others the impression of beauty or ugliness as far as the 
complexion is concerned. 


(451) 




452 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY. 

All women and most men delight in a fair complexion. The 
defects are dne to many causes, if we call a defect everything that 
produces ugliness. Here are some of them: 

1. An irregular bony structure makes the face ugly. This is due 
to pre-natal influences and cannot be cured, for the bones of the 
face cannot be changed. Some persons are very unfortunate in this 
regard, for nature has shaped them more to the likeness of dogs and 
chimpanzees than human beings. 

2. Muscular irregularity is due to habits of use. They be¬ 
come fixed in a few years, and are changed only by much physical 
manipulation. They are so many and so varied that it would re¬ 
quire a book to describe and to correct them. They follow laws as 
do all characteristics. 

3. The facial drift follows the disposition. Discontented per¬ 
sons draw down the corners of the mouth, and never look attract¬ 
ive. Gross and irritable persons knit the brows at the central 
place between the eyes just above the nose; and there are many 
other evidences of ugliness that come from ill nature. Every 
pleasant mood tends to draw the face to a position of beauty. 

4. Yellow or dirty skin is due to bile. In some cases it is 
called jaundice. This is a matter of health, and it would be the 
height of foolishness to attempt to correct it by treating the skin. 
In such a case the skin must not he dealt with too much, for it 
only attracts the flow of bile in greater quantity to the skin. If, 
therefore, you are bilious or have jaundice, correct the trouble by 
following the directions given in the treatment for faulty liver. 

5. Flesh sores on the face are due to the blood. They will be 
considered in part in this treatment, although they are chiefly 
curable by attention to the general health. 

6. Pimples and surface eruptions will also be considered in 
this treatment. 

7. Rough skin is directly dealt with herein. 

8. Lack of color is directly dealt with herein. 

9. Dead skin, which is the most common defect, as well as dead 
color, will he fully considered. 

10. Wrinkles, granulations, age-conditions, and every imperfec¬ 
tion not already noted, will he discussed in this monograph. 

Flesh Sores .—When deep sores form in the flesh on the face or 
neck, it is useless to confine the treatment solely to skin or surface, 
for the cause is to be found in the system itself. It orginated at 


BAD COMPLEXION. 


453 


first in a wrong diet, and there the cure must begin. If the sores 
are syphilitic or of syphilitic inheritance, a physician must be con¬ 
sulted, for we have nothing to do with cases of that kind. It is a 
common thing where the blood has been deranged by pork, fried 
grease, pastry, sweets, alcohol and other poisons, for sores to form 
on any part of the body. They may be incipient boils or they may 
be of an ulcerous tendency. In all such cases they should be 
checked as soon as possible; first, by subduing them with hot 
water, carbolic soap suds, and cold cream with a few applications 
of each the first day, and then acetate of lead dissolved in water 
and applied weak at first; second, by attention to the diet, omit¬ 
ting everything rich and injurious. 

To treat any ordinary pimple, or such a sore as we have just 
described, the best method is to use water as hot as can be borne, 
followed by a dash of cold water; then wash gently but repeatedly 
with carbolic soap suds; and then apply pure, fresh cold cream. 
After this has been done several times in one day, the acetate of 
lead should be put on the second day, as many as twenty times. 
Take half a teaspoonful of the powdered acetate of lead and mix 
it well in half a cup of water; dip the tip of the finger into the 
mixture and wet the pimple or sore a dozen times by repeated dips 
into the cup; and consider this one application. About twenty 
such in one day will show great improvement, provided the hot- 
water, carbolic soap suds and cold cream have been used on the 
day previous. 

Acetate of lead is so powerful that it is dangerous to use it care¬ 
lessly. It is deadly poison if taken inwardly. It will injure the 
eyes if used near them. Nor should it be spread over the face. 
Its great efficacy is found in using it on very small places as on 
sores, pimples and young boils. No eruption should be allowed 
to come to a head and form matter or pus if possible to prevent it. 

The cause of ninety-nine per cent, of all bad complexion is the 
blood. Back of this is the error in what is allowed to enter the 
stomach. The skin is live leather. It is full of pores. Each 
pore is a sewer, and empties out of the blood such impurities as 
it is able to take up and to unload. But a dirty skin clogs the 
pores and they cannot do their work. The dirt is like heaps of 
obstructions at the outlets. More than this the filth that remains 
on the skin eats into it and deposits its ferment which acts like a 
poison and injures the cuticle, causing blemishes. If there is a 


454 


SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY. 


part of the surface of the body where the pores are given greater 
freedom, the blood will send its poisons out there in greater 
abundance than it would otherwise do; for the circulation reaches 
every part of the body, and the easiest outlet is always preferred. 

The practice of working on the face, of keeping its pores open 
and free, of building up their activity and making them the out¬ 
lets of the whole body, establishes the facial pores as the zone of 
attraction for all the poisons that can be brought to that part 
of the body. This means an increase in the tendency to facial 
pimples and blotches. Country girls rarely ever take a bath. 
This statement is not true in some sections of the country; but it 
is true in nearly all parts. These same country girls who rarely 
take a bath wash their faces and hands often and thoroughly. 

The result of such face washing is to draw the poisons from 
all portions of the body to the easy outlet at the face; and this 
excess of sewerage at one place is more than the facial pores are 
able to dispose of. Pimples and exceedingly bad complexions are 
the attribute of the average country girl. It is a good rule never 
to wash the face unless a bath has been taken within seven days of 
the proposed event. The omission to wash the face will place it 
in the same category with all the rest of the body. 

Of course it is true that non-bathing will cause sores to come on 
all parts of the body; but the bathing of the face when no other 
part is washed will do the face a much greater degree of injury 
than if it were let alone. The epidemics of Europe were most 
severe when bathing was a lost art; and history shows that, in 
those eras when bathing was omitted altogether, skin diseases 
were universal. 

The only purpose of bathing the skin is to free the sewerage of 
the blood. The plan stated in high regime in the book of Inside 
Membership, which you have, is the best, for all purposes, and it 
should be adopted as part of this treatment. It is the Ninth Phase 
of high regime. 

As soon as the lower pores of the body are open, the blood 
withdraws its poisons from the upper half of the body; or, more 
accurately speaking, the blood will remove all poisons from the 
face and upper parts down as far as the lower rib bones, if all 
below that line is bathed once every twenty-four hours; and if 
the feet and legs are bathed every twelve hours. The chest re¬ 
mains sticky and soiled if no part of the body is bathed; but it 


BAD COMPLEXION. 


455 


seems to become clean if all the body below it is bathed as we have 
just suggested. 

In proof of this remarkable fact we wish to cite the reports 
made from seventy experiments, among people of both sexes who 
were troubled with pimply faces. We had but slight changes 
made in the diet, just enough to take out the rankest of the hurt¬ 
ful foods; but we prescribed the kind of bathing we have men¬ 
tioned. The result was about the same in every one of all these 
cases; the pimples on the faces yielded to the influence of the 
drainage at the lower pores, meaning that the sewerage of the 
blood that had heretofore been attracted to the face was now 
drawn off by the pores of the lower half of the body; and the faces 
grew nearly well; all that was needed was to make a few more cor¬ 
rections in the errors of eating, and the perfect complexions fol¬ 
lowed. In this number of seventy persons there were fifty-eight 
who had tried all kinds of remedies, all kinds of soaps, all kinds 
of treatment, as far as they had been able, and their faces had not 
improved in the slightest degree. Most of them declared that the 
more they worked upon the face the more the sores and blemishes 
grew. This was true; for the face must be let alone at all times 
when the body itself is not receiving cleansing baths. 

The experiment just referred to can be tried by any person who 
desires to see what an effective thing a simple law of nature may 
be. 

If you have a bad complexion try first to draw off the poisons 
by the daily bathing of the whole body below the ribs to the feet, 
and by the additional bathing of the feet and legs once every 
twenty-four hours. Follow the suggestions of Phase Nine of 
high regime in your book of Inside Membership. 

This may be called the first great step. 

Next comes the second step, which requires that no food poisons 
should be allowed to enter the body; and, to this end, you should 
follow the book of Inside Membership, observing all the diet of 
high regime and omitting all that is forbidden in chapter twenty- 
one. This of itself will create a perfect complexion in a large 
number of cases, and almost accomplish that end in many in¬ 
stances where all other laws of hygiene are neglected. 

The third great step should be used whenever the body is not 
free. This sometimes should be the first. It is the treatment 


456 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY. 

known as anti-death, and will be found in the first part of this 
volume. 

Having taken these three steps, the only thing remaining to do 
is to fight out old conditions in the face, which may be done under 
the suggestions which we will now give. 

EFFECT OF DISTILLED WATER. 

Certain ladies have known for a long time that fresh rain water 
softens the skin as it does clothing, and some few have maintained 
excellent complexions by its continued and faithful use; but it is 
not easy to get clean and fresh rain water, nor is it human nature 
to persevere in any efforts to beautify the face except when the 
skin is becoming too unattractive. Pure rain water is not obtained 
without some trouble. That which is sold at the drug store may 
be weeks or months old, and will not suffice. Snow water, when 
obtained from clean snow and kept corked, is good in winter time; 
but all water spoils by standing, just as milk spoils. 

Distilled water is better than either rain water or melted snow, 
for it is obtained unaerated, and is a far more active cleanser of the 
face. There are many thousands of home stills in use in this 
country connecting the ordinary water, which is never safe to 
drink, into pure water that differs from rain only in the fact that 
the latter is aerated in its passage from the clouds to the earth. To 
be best for drinking purposes the distilled water should stand in 
a cool, odorless place, in large-mouthed receptacles until it has 
absorbed common air, say for two days. But to be best for cleansing 
the stomach or the face, it should not be aerated; as unaerated dis¬ 
tilled water is a very active cleanser. It absorbs poisons and 
eats out all defective life and foreign matter. Therefore it is 
the best thing that can be put upon the face. 

It destroys and removes dead skin, granulations, scurf and soil- 
disease; opening the pores and leaving the surface smooth and of 
the velvety softness intended by nature. This is true of the mascu¬ 
line face in a relative sense; for the feminine skin ought to be 
found smoother and softer at all times. It is not true that a 
man looks more manly with a rough, wind-wrinkled and bile- 
colored face; he is entitled to a fair degree of smoothness of skin 
and a clearness of color, always avoiding coarseness of surface 
while maintaining a firm and solid flesh. It is his duty to keep 
himself as young looking as he can. 


BAD COMPLEXION. 


457 


Some persons of wealth bathe daily in distilled water, but it is 
just as effective to wash, in any water, as far as the unexposed 
parts of the body are concerned, so that after rinsing a quart or two 
of distilled water is used over the whole surface just before drying. 

In applying distilled water to the face the best method is to use 
no other water, as lime or other minerals will harden the skin and 
lead to old age conditions too soon. Nature provided rain for all 
washing and drinking purposes; but man has ignored the blessing, 
and is not fully awake to the value of the gift. When distilled 
water or rain water is used on the face, scalp, ears and neck, soap 
need not be applied except in cases of much dirt. The less soap 
that is used the better for the skin if it is in fair condition. The 
face should be washed on arising and just before retiring, and one 
or more times besides during the day; and it should be given plenty 
of distilled or rain water, not a small quantity. After that let it 
dry itself in a warm or hot room, aiding it by patting a warm 
towel over the parts that dry slowly. Fog is distilled water and is 
highly beneficial to the face under similar conditions. 

To remove wrinkles and to keep the skin smooth, give atten¬ 
tion to the preceding directions; in addition to which apply cold 
cream or cocoa-butter to the forehead and temples, as well as to 
any other part that seems to be getting rough, as at the ear, under 
the eyes, at the sides of the nose, on the chin and along the cheek¬ 
bones. The cold cream or cocoa-butter must be sweet and fresh. 
It should never be applied except just before retiring. A good 
plan is to put it on the face, then rub it over the parts; and 
spend ten minutes, after getting into bed, in smoothing the skin. 
This is done by the action of the ends of the fingers over the face; 
first rubbing the cold cream or cocoa-butter into the skin by move¬ 
ments in very small circles; then carrying all the following strokes 
outward. Thus the tip of the finger should be placed on the hollow 
of the nose between the eyes, pressed hard and vibrated there, then 
carried up a half inch, pressed hard and vibrated, then up and out 
to the right, and back to the hollow, then up and out to the left; 
stopping at every half inch to press hard and vibrate the finger. 
Many repetitions of these movements may be given in two minutes. 
The next step is to place the finger at the edge of the bone on the 
outer part of each eye, the longest finger of the left hand going to 
the left outer edge of the left eye, and the longest finger of the right 
hand going to the right outer edge of the right eye. Do not drag the 


458 


SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY. 


skin, but rub it and press it with vibrations. The whole forehead, 
the temples, the under lids, the sides of the nose from the inner 
comer of the eyes down the cheek bones, and other places may be 
so treated, always being careful to avoid any motion toward the 
center of the face. Move from the center. 

The lids may be brightened by taking a bowl of cold water, 
either distilled, rain or snow water, and opening the eyes widely in 
it, while they are under water, and holding them open for ten or 
fifteen seconds; something after the plan used to strengthen and 
beautify the eyes. Care must be taken not to have the water too 
cold at first. 

Persistency is the secret of a fine and beautiful complexion. 
To do a thing once or fifty times that should be done repeatedly 
day in and day out is not likely to bring anything but disappoint¬ 
ment. If you wish to surprise your friends, and to obtain a face 
that is much healthier as well as twenty-five to fifty per cent, 
younger, try the foregoing method, and persist in all its details con¬ 
tinually. Never miss once. We now come to the most important 
part of this treatment. 

Youth and beauty of face are obtainable at almost any period 
of one’s existence if the method we are about to prescribe is per¬ 
sisted in by the man or woman of ambition. On the other hand it 
must not be forgotten that no outward care can offset an inward 
cause. Look first at your eyes; are the whites muddy and cloudy ? 
Look at the skin; is it yellow or of dirty hue? You may plaster 
over the face with powder, but it is unhealthy still. A wrong diet 
must be corrected before we can accomplish anything in this treat¬ 
ment. 

An Englishman of the highest rank and greatest wealth was 
traveling in Scotland and noticed the youthful face of a man past 
eighty years of age. There were no wrinkles in the skin, the eyes 
were of unusual brightness, and there was a fulness of flesh that 
showed good health; while the features were undoubtedly strong 
and indicative of a vigorous character. It was not the face of a 
young man, but the youthful appearance of an old man. Certain 
marks of senility are always to be found, although they may be 
much reduced and softened. The Englishman was so much in¬ 
terested that he sought the secret, for such he took it to be. And 
it seemed very simple at first. The Scotchman said that he had 
washed his face every night in corn meal. This seemed an easy 


bad complexion. 


459 


thing to do; but simple as it is, there is nothing easier to fail in 
than in this. 

He told his inquirer that the quantity, the method of using, 
and the constant repetition of use were all important. If every 
requirement except one should be complied with, failure might 
ensue and disappointment be the fruit of all efforts. The English¬ 
man said that he would be glad to pay a princely sum for informa¬ 
tion that would give him such a complexion. He was told that the 
following exact details should be complied with in the most careful 
manner; no part of any one of them should be neglected. If you 
try them at all try them faithfully. 

1. A large washbowl, and, before using it, scald it very thor¬ 
oughly. This will not take a half minute. 

2. Get a bag of yellow corn meal ground as fine as the finest 
for sale on the market. 

3. Put two quarts of rain water or distilled water or melted 
snow in the bowl, and have it tepid or blood warm, so*as to suit 
the natural heat of the face. 

4. In this water put two heaping tablespoonfuls of the meal, 
and stir it very thoroughly about, until all the water is clouded 
with it. There will be a large proportion fall to the bottom, but it 
is to be stirred up with each handful used. 

5. Select the time just before retiring at night. 

6. Remove the clothing at the neck to avoid getting it wet. 

7. Lean forward so as to bring the face close to the bowl, take 
both hands and agitate the meal in the water, and wash neck, ears 
and face by going over the entire surface twenty times with the 
corn meal water. This may require a minute or two. 

8. Do not rub the meal or meal-water on the skin, but simply 
place it on and pat it gently with the hands. Avoid all friction. 

9. When the foregoing directions have been complied with, 
then the real work begins: that of getting the meal-water from 
the face. Some will seem to cling for a long time, and it is the 
many repeated rinsings that accomplish the good. They will vex 
you for a while, as they are sometimes quite obstinate in their re¬ 
fusal to come off; but that is where the advantage is. 

10. The same meal-water may be used for several nights, if 
bottled up and kept cool enough to prevent souring. 

11. The rinsing may be done with any clean water; but should 
be followed by a dash of distilled water, or some equally pure. 


460 


SPECIAL, TREATMENT No. THIRTY. 


12. The face must then be dried by patting a dry towel on it. 
Never rub the face. After it is dried, it is advisable to apply cold 
cream, sweet cream, or cocoa-butter in the manner stated in the 
early part of this treatment. 

The shin of the body, including that of the face, is built up 
partly by the blood and partly by the air and substances with 
which it comes in contact on the outside. Oils, fats and creams 
of certain kinds are means of affording nutrition to it; and are 
much better when applied outwardly. All dust of grains, and 
especially that of yellow corn, yields a marked quantity of food 
and stimulant to the skin; and the proof of this fact will be so 
overwhelming in a few weeks that it will furnish one of the gen¬ 
uine surprises of your life. All you need to do is to try it, if 
you wish such proof. Tacts are things, and they are monuments 
of truth. Many an elaborate theory has been toppled to th,e 
ground by the sudden appearance of a fact. 

The continued use of the meal-wash , as stated in this mono¬ 
graph, will in reality create a new skin, and a new kind of skin, 
having the elements of youthful freshness and smoothness to it. 
The process is very inexpensive, for which reason there can be no 
objection to it on that score. Its chief objection is the time and 
annoyance attendant upon a continued persistence in its require¬ 
ments , but who can step into the full enjoyment of any blessing at 
a single leap and without some pains and labor in the attainment? 


■KfKfc. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special •Treatment 

NUMBER 31 




j Depression and Melancholy { 


This condition, which may for convenience be called melancholia, 
is either temporary or fixed. If temporary, it is due to some specific 
cause; if fixed, it may be either intermittent or constant. 

While the patient is subject to the condition of depression he feels 
his life oppressed by an overwhelming state of gloom and forebod¬ 
ing. Anxiety is present in mind, and dread attends every act. 

In many cases there are delusions and imaginings; in others, 
there is only an indefinable feeling. The morbid moods begin, as a 
rule, very gradually and grow by imperceptible degrees until they 
are fixed in the mind and body. But a sudden loss, as of monej^, or 
the breaking of an engagement to marry, or the death of a dear 
friend or relation, will cause the disease in a short time. 

As a rule, the younger the person the greater the chance for a 
cure unless there is an inherited taint of insanity. Age adds to the 
difficulty. But melancholia is generally a curable disease, if it is 
treated in the proper manner. Even very old persons have rid 
themselves of it and been restored to perfectly normal health. 

There are some persons who are subject to this malady who are all 
the time aware that there is nothing genuine to worry about; they 

(461) 



462 SPECIAL, TREATMENT No. THIRTY-ONE. 


know and say that they worry over trifles, over mere nothings, and 
sometimes they have their anxieties and forebodings when all goes 
well. Then they have the dread that the tide will tnrn. It is a 
very common remark: “ Everything is all right, and that is a sure 
sign that something is going to happen, for things never go all right 
long at a time,” or words to that effect. There is the study of signs, 
presentiments and superstitions; and they sooner or later produce 
morbid minds. Where such things are totally disregarded and dis¬ 
believed in, there is never a case of melancholia; yet it is true that 
people educate themselves to believe in signs and superstitions. Let 
this tendency be set down as the first that must be overcome. A 
committee of one hundred persons, each engaging one hundred more 
to act in harmony, made a test for a number of years of all the signs 
and superstitions that held the respectful attention of the more 
sensible classes. The committee thus had ten thousand persons at 
work, and each followed out not less than twenty of the common be¬ 
liefs, resulting in fully two hundred thousand instances that were 
worked out. The most common of all the superstitious beliefs is 
that in the number thirteen, and the most common of all the fears 
in connection with it is that which precludes thirteen persons from 
sitting at a table at the same time, or in the same company. Then 
to begin anything on Friday is also considered unlucky. The great¬ 
est facts of the world show how senseless are these beliefs; for the 
United States began with thirteen original States, and Columbus 
set sail on an unknown sea on Friday and discovered America on 
another Friday. But in these experiments, involving over two 
hundred thousand instances, the law of averages was seen always at 
work. Thus where it was reported that, in a party of thirteen 
that sat at a table, two died within the year, there were always as 
many people that died in the year out of parties of seven, or other 
numbers. But the habit of observing results when the number 
thirteen is involved brings attention to that belief and no heed is 
paid to other numbers. This tends to affirm the prevailing belief. 

Slavery to superstition is at first evidence of a weak character, 
and later on the defect in character becomes a type of mental un¬ 
balance. 

The cure for this part of the trouble is to ignore all superstitions. 
One of the most successful theatrical managers in New York had a 
run of hard luck, as he called it, which had followed him remorse¬ 
lessly for years. He woke up to the fact that his main weakness was 


DEPRESSION AND MELANCHOLY. 463 

an attempt to adjust his ventures to superstitious beliefs. Seeing 
that his judgment was thus warped, he took the other plan, and 
defied such beliefs, but avoided going out of his way in doing so. 
The play that put him on a substantial basis and caused a reversal 
of his ill fortune and made him successful opened on the thirteenth 
day of the month. It had a long run and proved the stepping stone 
to the greater successes that have followed. When asked why he did 
not always defy superstitions and go opposite to them, he replied: 
“ It would likewise warp my business judgment. I propose to do 
what my good sense tells me is the best.” And that is the rule of all 
action. 

Assuming that you will do likewise, let us look more deeply into 
the methods of treating other stages of melancholia. 

The cause of the malady may be that which instigated it or that 
which governs it. It is necessary to understand this distinction. 
The loss of a member of the family may instigate the depressed 
state. Take the case of a child old enough to understand that the 
death of the father means poverty, and the whole being will sink 
into the condition of melancholia. It will emerge in time if the 
mind is not morbid. It is one of the laws of nature that the greatest 
misfortunes rebound and are followed by the reaction towards sub¬ 
mission to and patience with the inevitable. 

What is called disappointment in love affects a part of the brain 
that is not associated with the reasoning faculties, and in conse¬ 
quence the shock produces melancholy. When the reason is normal 
such depressions do not remain long in the form of morbid habits. 
A reaction sets in and the sufferer goes bravely to work to build up a 
future of happiness. 

The loss of money, position or advantage does not produce lasting 
melancholia unless the mind is unbalanced. In the latter case the 
insane delusions generally send the victim to the asylum or to the 
grave. ^ 

As doctors never make pretense to cure melancholia by drugs, 
there must be another plan by which to secure a favorable outcome, 
and this we will undertake to present in this treatment. 

The first step is the willingness to be cured. If this be lacking 
it is useless to make the effort. The only thing that can be done in 
such case is to see that the patient is well supplied with nutrition 
in all forms. The diet should be wholesome foods of the kind to be 


464 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-ONE. 

suggested in the later pages of this treatment, and there should be 
plenty of fresh air and a great variety of wholesome duties. 

If the willingness to be cured be present, then the nearest to the 
true cause should be made known by the patient, not to others, but 
to the sufferer alone. This will hold up the exact reason for the 
existence of melancholia; it can be examined, tested and weighed. 

There are many cases where the cause is merely the condition 
which governs it. By this is meant that there is no instigating 
cause, like misfortune, death, loss of property or disappointment; 
but the state of the nervous health keeps the mind and body de¬ 
pressed. This is called the governing cause; for it has no instiga¬ 
tion. 

It is clearly shown by post-mortem examinations that persons 
who have died from melancholia or from some other attendant 
malady, or who have been subject to this condition, have shrunken 
ganglia. This term may not be understood by the reader, and so 
we will call the ganglia the battery cells, or better still the vital 
cells of the body. They are placed at various places where they can 
suppty the nerves with the vital fluid. By pressing on one of the 
nerves it is possible to shut off the supply of fluid which feeds the 
body, and to thus put some part to sleep, as when a sleeve is tight 
and the hand goes to sleep. A cramped sitting position will do the 
same thing, and the leg goes to sleep. This shows that the fluid 
must not be interfered with. It is an electric current of the kind 
that attends animal life but has all the essential qualities of ordi¬ 
nary electricity; and, like that power, it must flow from storage 
batteries. These are called ganglia, or ganglionic cells, by science; 
but they are vital cells and we will so term them. 

When melancholia attacks a person these cells are shrunk. They 
really are emptied. If there is an instigating cause such as bad 
news, the death of some dear one, the loss of fortune, or other event 
that disheartens, the vital cells may empty their contents in a few 
minutes and collapse. 

But if, on the other hand, there is no such cause, then it is the 
empty condition of these cells that produces melancholia. It does 
not itself produce the condition, but is produced by it. 

It is therefore seen that in all cases the vital cells are empty 
when the mind or body is depressed. 

The malady is of universal character. Tt is not confined to one 
locality or to one class of people. It is not as often with the abject 


DEPRESSION AND MELANCHOLY. 


465 


poor as with the rich; for the more opulence a person comes in con¬ 
tact with, the more difficult it is to satisfy that individual. Nor, as 
might be expected, is melancholia the lot of those who have once 
been rich and have fallen into poverty. The gloomiest of all lives 
are those that seek to get something out of nature without giving 
her an equivalent in return. 

There are two lines of cure that have proved effective; one is 
wholly a physical effort, and the other is wholly a mental one. 
Either will achieve the results desired; the two working together 
will make the process less burdensome to the patient. 

The physical method is by the use of foods and habits of life that 
tend to maintain a healthy condition of the vital centers of the 
nervous system. It is a question of diet to begin with. The foods 
and drinks to be avoided are those that are forbidden under chap¬ 
ter twenty-one of your book of Inside Membership. The diet that 
is most likely to build up the energy of the nervous centers is the 
following: 

There should be six meals each day. 

The breakfast should be eaten soon after rising, thus varying 
from the plan of high regime. 

This meal ought to be based on plain, varied and substantial 
food. Any food that depresses the liver should be avoided; and oat¬ 
meal, sugars, crisp cooking, sickish articles, such as pancakes, etc., 
will stop the action of the liver. Sometimes this organ and morbid 
feelings are in partnership. A bad liver brings on anger and kindred 
moods, and the condition of the bile determines the gloom or hap¬ 
piness of the mind more often than one would think. 

Variety of food is important. Whole wheat, cracked, is a whole¬ 
some breakfast food. So is wheatlet. So is corn meal if well cooked 
the day before, then boiled and toasted when it is to be eaten in the 
morning. Old bread, also toasted bread, eggs, steaks, chops, fruit 
and practically all the diet allowed in high regime, will prove help¬ 
ful. The stomach ought to be tempted by new forms of cooking, 
and new shapes and methods of serving, while not varying the sub¬ 
stance. There are fifty or more ways of preparing eggs. Novelties 
arouse the appetite; and it is one of the peculiarities of gloomy 
folks that they lack appetite. Even steaks can be hidden under new 
guises and forms of cooking and serving. There are many attractive 
ways of preparing potatoes. We have seen melancholy people who 
had no appetite whatever, start in and eat the novelties which were 
30 


466 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-ONE- 


placed before them. Change and variety please the mind and at¬ 
tract the faculties. The rule then is to depart from the old methods 
and adopt the new. 

The change of the room in which most of the daytime is spent is 
likewise important. If it is not possible to get another room, have 
the furniture moved about and new things seen, or old ones placed 
where they will seem different. 

The sleeping room should be subjected to the same plan of 
change. 

All the food, whether of morning, noon or evening, should be pre¬ 
pared upon the principles stated. It should be plain, substantial, 
wholesome and nourishing, yet dressed in new garbs and made as 
attractive as art and thought can devise. 

The second meal of the day should occur about ten o’clock in the 
forenoon. It should consist of a lunch of bread and some home 
fruit, or an apple or dainty of some kind, not rich. Remember that 
the foods forbidden in the book of Inside Membership are to be 
avoided here. Crackers, and all package goods are hurtful. 

The noon meal is the third, and the evening meal is the fifth, for 
about four o’clock in the afternoon, a lunch of rice, butter and 
roasted almonds is to be eaten. The rice should be hot and eaten 
with butter, on which some almonds that have been roasted should 
be grated a half inch thick. 

Almonds are the only nut you should ever eat, except boiled chest¬ 
nuts. 

The rice-almond lunch should not be swallowed rapidly. The 
purpose is to pass it into the system through the glands of the 
throat. This is done by chewing the rice and almond meal as long 
as you can keep it in the mouth. Make the effort not to lose it, and 
it will linger with you quite a while. This will require about fifteen 
minutes to each saucer of the mixture; but you will not find fifteen 
minutes too long for a meal. Take all you wish; it cannot hurt you 
if you eat it in the way stated. 

The almond nut holds a close relation to the needs of the nerve 
centers. Its food is a natural nutriment for that department of life. 
Cases of headaches, and especially of neuralgia, have been imme¬ 
diately relieved by eating roasted almonds if they have been chewed 
until a fine meal is made, before they are swallowed. 

The supper is the fifth meal, and that should follow the plan of 
high regime. 


DEPRESSION AND MELANCHOLY. 467 

The sixth and last meal is that which is taken jnst before getting 
into bed. It may consist of a bowl of hot broth, or a half dozen 
malted milk tablets such as you can get at the drug stores. Do not 
use the chocolate tablets. Avoid chocolate and cocoa in every form, 
as they are enemies to the liver and kidneys. 

The habits of life are simply stated. 

You should be in rooms day and night that face to the south ; and 
this is true the year round. You should have all the sun you can 
get indoors, and all you can get out of doors. The outdoor air is 
necessary for seven hours daily; not at the open window or in the 
doorway, but where you can have it all around you, and in the sun 
if possible. These empty vital centers that are the direct cause of 
melancholia are fed by sunshine and outdoor air. 

A faithful observance of the suggestions already stated will result 
in a cure in ten hundred cases out of a thousand; or in every case 
that may be thus treated. 

On the mental side of the cure it should be stated that the mind 
must see definite limits in all the conditions that surround life or a 
cure will not be effected in this way. There must be the definite 
limits in the first place and the mind should recognize them in the 
second place. It is lack of definiteness that makes the uncertainty, 
ancFit is the uncertainty that makes the melancholy. The most 
common illustration of this law is seen in the financial weakness of 
some people who are brooding over their possible poverty. 

A man came to us a year or so ago and said that he had an income 
of a certain amount and was living on a certain excess, which meant 
his ruin. He had tried to make more money, but could not do it. 
The thing for him to do was to shift his conditions and live within 
his income. Another man who had a family, a large house, and 
heavy expenses to meet, found that he could not keep up under the 
strain and proceeded to end the fight by suicide. A friend asked 
him what his expenses were each year, and he replied six thousand 
dollars. His income was now only a thousand. The friend advised 
him to get out of his expensive house, take one that was humble, 
give up all unnecessary financial expenditures, and live within his 
income. It was an awful prospect, but the man was manly and he 
did it. He knew that he could keep within his receipts each year. 
The result was that the ordeal tried his soul and gave him courage 
that he would have never known. He stopped worrying because he 
could see the definite where before all was uncertain. His mind was 


468 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-ONE- 

better able to meet the battle of existence, and he came out of it a 
double victor, for he recovered his good fortune and replaced himself 
in the better honse. This was better than snicide. 

The passing of day after day without accomplishing something 
definite is in line with the same idea. Ambitionless existence is 
melancholic. It is bound to be. Let some one thing be done daily 
and recorded; some thing that is worth doing and worth recording. 
Do some good for yonrself, if not for others. Charity towards 
others is good if you can afford it; but you must do good to your 
own life. Add a little to your knowledge in some way, not by read¬ 
ing but by studying. Take up some useful study that will make you 
more practical. Lose no time in doing this. Then perform some 
duties that will add to the pleasure of living. See what can be done 
to make your room, your home, your garden more attractive. If you 
can get the use of a piece of ground, even if it is very small, make 
plans in the winder what you will do in the spring on that lot, and 
turn some hours of work and planning into a small profit. If you 
are a woman, have some man dig the ground up for you, as a compli¬ 
ment to you; and tell him frankly that you are going to see what 
you can do with the land in the line of making a little profit. 

Take up physical occupations in your odd minutes. 

Keep active. 

Rest of the body and of the mind means brooding. Planning and 
working are reliefs from that morbid condition. Prepare an outline 
of study and see what you can do with it. Have ambition to do 
something that will educate, elevate or refine yourself; and all of 
these if you will. 

Do no reading and no resting. 

If you are troubled with insomnia, take that treatment at once, 
as it is in this book. Let that have precedence over this until you 
can sleep soundly every night. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, hy Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 32 



DteM and DMn 


Diarrhoea is the over-activity of the bowels. It is described in 
medical works as excessive peristalsis, which means the same thing. 
It is chiefly a fluid movement, owing to the presence of too much 
water in the intestines, not from drinking too much, but because the 
intestines have not properly performed their duty. 

Dysentery is a fever condition accompanied by inflammation of 
the glands of the large intestine. It is attended by ulceration in 
most cases, and sloughing or gangrene. The stools show blood, 
mucus, slime, gangrenous matter, like the washings of meat, and 
various exudations. 

This is a serious condition. 

Dysentery arises from the poisons of marshes, swamps, flat river 
lands, sluggish rivers and streams, and wherever there are malarial 
fevers. Improved drainage and the cultivation of marshes cause in¬ 
termittent and remittent fevers to disappear, and with them go the 
conditions that bring on dysentery. It is plain therefore that no 
person can affect a cure who lives where these fevers are present; 
although it is not true that dysentery is always attendant upon such 
fevers. The latter may prevail in mild form, or the conditions may 
not induce the dysentery, but the latter is preceded by such condi¬ 
tions. You may have the fever without the disease we are dis¬ 
cussing. 


( 469 ) 


470 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-TWO. 


An acute attack of dysentery should be placed at once in charge 
of your local or family physician; but in case one is not at hand it 
is well to know what to do until aid can he brought. Two dangers 
are to be confronted. One is the increase of the attack by disturbing 
the patient. He should be put in bed and not allowed to move a 
muscle. All stools should be taken while he is lying down, as the 
slightest motion of the body is hurtful. The other danger is in 
heart failure. To prevent this, brandy must be given, and at the 
rate of an ounce an hour, except in very severe cases when an ounce 
every thirty minutes must be given. This will generally tide the 
patient over the first stage of the attack. 

All water must be boiled. If you can get pure rain water it is to 
be preferred, but even this must be boiled. Distilled water is also 
an excellent aid, and that should be boiled before it is given. The 
boiling destroys all germs that arise from the infected land. 

The use of boiled milk as the diet until the crisis is passed is 
likely to do more good than any medicine, although your physician 
will know exactly what to prescribe, and it is necessary to be led by 
him. 

But boiled milk, in which the whites of eggs are put, at the rate 
of two to each glass, will accomplish much good. It is well to let all 
else alone for a while. Baw scraped beef is also helpful, in case a 
change of diet is desired. 

Acute dysentery as a complication with some other disease must 
be treated as part of the malady to which it is attached. It accom¬ 
panies not only malarial fever, but also typhoid, also consumption, 
scurvy, enlargement of the spleen, kidney disease, malarious poison¬ 
ing, abscess of the liver, etc. In children it sometimes attends teeth¬ 
ing. 

In a number of instances where physicians have failed to check 
dysentery in children that were teething, we have suggested the use 
of malted milk and hot distilled water, mixed half and half, as 
much as would be allowed for a meal for a child, once every four 
hours, and half way between this period of time a half pint of 
boiled milk; thus making the meals two hours apart. In a few 
hours the most obstinate cases of dysentery have disappeared. 

Boiling ordinary water is a good precaution, but it is not always 
a means of cure, for there are many kinds of ordinary drinking water 
that are charged with minerals that irritate the mucus lining of the 
intestines and prevent a cure; to boil such water does no good. It is 


DYSENTARY AND DIARRHEA. 


471 


wise to change the drinking water the first thing you do. Distilled 
water can be procured at almost any town or city. In malarial dis¬ 
tricts it is well to own a small home still. 

Teething will never bring on dysentery if the diet is right and if 
the drinking water is wholesome. We have here given the full direc¬ 
tions as to the water; and the treatment in this book on the maladies 
of infancy will give the proper diet. 

Diarrhoea is a milder condition of dysentery, and is not attended 
by ulceration, nor by inflammation of the glands. It is caused by 
any one of the following: 

Food of a starchy nature whose cells have not been opened by 
sufficient cooking. 

Fruit that is not fully mellow, or that has been cooked soft in 
the belief that softness of the mass is equal to the bursting of the 
fruit cells. Softness is a separation of the unopened cells, whereas 
mellowness is the bursting of the cells themselves. Only the latter 
condition is wholesome. 

Mold. This is one of the most common of all the causes, and 
often it sets up dysentery. Mold is present in almost all homes. 
On the bread, on the fruit that has been canned, on the foods that 
have been set aside and not looked after; and there can be no more 
treacherous poison than this. 

Not long ago a mother went to her fruit closet and took down a 
jar of preserves on which a layer of mold had gathered. In her 
haste she forgot to remove the top, and mixed the mold up with the 
preserves so that she herself did not detect it as it was served at the 
table. Six children ate of it; two died ; two more were afflicted with 
a severe attack of dysentery and all the others with diarrhoea. The 
condition of the system had something to do with the power of the 
body to resist the invasion of the poison, as is always the case. 

Improper food causes diarrhoea, such as salted meat, shell fish, 
spoiled meat, sour bread, diseased flesh, eggs from hens that have 
eaten too great a proportion of filth and many other things. Hasty 
chewing of food, or imperfect mastication and eating in a great 
hurry, will often lead to this maladv. 

Bad air in a house will cause the disease. TJnventilated rooms, 
or places where s.ewer gas escapes, or damp locations, all are likelv 
to produce the intestinal irritation, and dysentery may result. To 
prevent this it is necessary to live in proper places and in houses that 
are hygienic. 


472 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-TWO. 


Rest in bed will help the functions of the body and favor the 
diminution of the attack. 

In addition to the use of distilled water and boiled milk, the 
drinking of malted milk mixed half and half with very hot water, 
will prove immediately relieving if it is sipped in very tiny swallows 
and not allowed to enter the stomach hot, for all hot foods and 
drinks in the stomach irritate the intestines. 

Toasted old bread not made of alum, that is made at home, should 
be one of the main aids to the two kinds of milk we have suggested. 
Sage, arrowroot, large tapioca, not the pearl kind, and plenty of rice 
properly cooked so as not to be soggy, will finish out the diet until 
the case is relieved. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 33 


> acroo ' a.o aoooao aaa oaoaoaoaoG jag ao aoagaoa(? o^ 1 






The sense of sight is by far the most important of all the faculties 
of the body. It is the most abused. It is abused not only by out¬ 
ward use for the purposes of seeing, reading, etc., but is much more 
abused by the kind of nutrition with which it is fed. The specialists 
who study this subject are coming to the conclusion that the eyes 
are merely a part of the daily food and daily habits of life, and that 
it will respond to them more than to any other influence. 

The blood sends its stream of nutriment- through the eyeballs and 
back of them along the lines of nerves that furnish the power of 
sight. What you eat is seen in the conditions of the eye through 
the instrument known as the opthalmoscope. The sanity of the 
mind, the diseases of the organs of the body, the purity of the 
blood, the results of poisons, and many other conditions are there 
presented, and read with clearness. 

As an illustration of this ease of ascertaining the character of 
health in the bod}^ take the case of a person who has kidney trouble; 
the condition is not confined to the kidneys alone, for no part of 
the body is isolated from the whole system; and the disturbance in 
kidney disease is in reality the result of morbid changes or the 
breaking down of the structures throughout all the small arteries 
of the body. These same small arteries are present in the eye, and 

( 473 ) 



474 SPECIAL, TREATMENT No. THIRTY-THREE. 


there are seen arterial hemorrhages which occur in the fibre-layer; 
and also there are small white patches scattered over the fundus. 
These tell the facts to the skilled observer. The kidneys are af¬ 
fected, and there is not much hope of recovery. A business man 
went to an optician lo have his eyes fitted for glasses. The optician 
saw that the trouble was deeper, and told him to consult a physician. 
As the man went away, the optician remarked to a friend: “ That 
man will not be alive in six months.” And it proved true. 

We might refer to many other maladies that are shown by the 
eye. But the ease with which food or drink affects the vision may be 
noted in the cases of those who take wood alcohol; a small quantity 
of this poison will affect the vision; and a few drops of it do more 
harm than would be supposed. One ordinary drink of whiskey will 
bring on total blindness if the wood alcohol is the basis of the whis¬ 
key; and in a majority of cases one such drink, small as it may 
seem, will cause death. Nearly a score of men died in New York 
City recently in the space of a few days from drinking wood-alcohol 
whiskey purchased at one saloon there. 

But people who are most temperate in their habits and total 
abstainers as well are taking wood alcohol in their systems in doses 
large or small, for nearly all patent medicines, many of the canned 
goods, perfumery, and wines, brandies and liquors generally are 
more or less adulterated with this fluid. The adulterators have 
learned how little to use to avoid immediately fatal results; but 
they have paid no attention to the fact that weakness of vision and 
eventual blindness will follow the use of their concoctions. As an 
indication of the prevailing dishonesty of the times, it may be stated 
that these makers of adulterated goods are perfectly willing to en¬ 
danger the lives of men, women and children for the sake of a small 
extra profit, provided they see a way of escaping the penitentiary. 
If their deeds could be done wholly in the dark without fear of 
prosecution they would kill humanity by the thousands annually for 
the sake of the little extra profit. This is the theory on which all 
food adulterations proceed. 

Children are now wearing glasses. There are to-day in adultera¬ 
tion-America more children per thousand that wear glasses than 
there were adults and children per thousand fifty years ago who 
wore them or had need of them. 

These children are dosed with patent medicines on every slight 
pretext. There are hundreds of empty medicine bottles in the cellar 


FAILING eyesight. 


475 


or back yard of almost every home. Instead of preventing the dis¬ 
eases among children, parents elect to remain ignorant of what they 
need, and then depend on medicines as means of cure; and the medi¬ 
cines they give are generally such stuff as they have seen advertised. 
The sensible person will not buy any medicine that is advertised. 
Then store jams, canned fruits, peaches, tomatoes, plums, apricots, 
cherries, pears, etc., put up by manufacturers and sold in the stores, 
are almost without exception dosed with wood alcohol or chemicals; 
and it is largely from this cause that the eyes of children and adults 
are injured. They are the prolific cause of the growing habit of 
wearing glasses. Are women to-day too feeble to can and preserve 
their fruit at home as in the good old days when the mother was also 
the intelligent housewife? Surely the penalty for neglecting this 
great duty is being paid for at a dear price when little ones are 
wearing glasses, and their playmates, often their brothers and 
sisters, are sleeping in the graveyard. Here is the penalty that the 
mother pays for not remaining at the helm to conduct the affairs of 
her home; but leaving the most sacred duties of life to ignorant, 
nasty cooks. 

Any poison or irritant that enters the stomach will injure the 
eyes. Alum will do it; and nearly all baking powders contain alum; 
even those that are tested as free from alum are found to have it 
when the general public comes to buy, showing that the chemist who 
gives the certificate has been deceived. But, alum or no alum, all 
baking powders are hurtful to the blood and to the eyes. 

Sugars and sweets are also injurious to the optic nerve. They 
produce the clouds that float over the vision and that thicken as the 
months and years go by. The liver will not act upon an excess of 
sugars and sweets, and the refusal of this organ to dispose of them 
causes the blood to be surcharged with a ferment that sets up a dis¬ 
turbance in the eyes. 

Too much meat will do the same thing and for the same cause; 
for the liver is very slow to act upon meat beyond a very small quan¬ 
tity each day. 

Any of the forbidden foods and drinks in chapter twenty-one of 
your book of Inside Membership will injure the optic nerve to a 
greater or less extent, and they should be wholly avoided. 

Then sedentary habits poison the blood by the stagnation they 
cause in the process of intestinal digestion; and any poison, no 
matter what, will reach the eyes and reduce their power. Activity 


476 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-THREE. 

on the feet, plenty of outdoor air*and sunshine; these are the best 
foundation, in conjunction with proper care of the stomach, for the 
suggestions which we will now give: 

1. The eyesight keeps pace with the health of the body and its 
general condition. Few persons realize this fact. If you are weak 
the sight becomes weak. If you are nervously exhausted the very 
first faculty to fail is that of brightness of sight. Although the 
eye-ball is hung upon muscles, the operation of seeing is purely 
a nervous act, and can be no better than the vitality of the whole 
nervous system back of it. 

2. When sickness, nervous prostration or any malady is accom¬ 
panied by the inability to use the eyes normally, the disappearance 
of such cause is almost always followed by a restoration of the 
normal sight. 

3. Many persons take necessarily to the wearing of glasses while 
the sight is affected, and continue to use them after the cause of the 
trouble has disappeared. This is more often true than anyone im¬ 
agines who has not actually experimented to find out the facts. 
Thus a girl of eighteen found herself going into a rapid decline. 
She became nearsighted in a few months. An expert optician fitted 
her to glasses. Later on her health was fully restored, but she con¬ 
tinued to wear the glasses; having become used to them as to a 
friend and companion. Despite her belief to the contrary, she 
found that her sight had been completely restored by the return of 
general good health. 

4. The eye-ball acts like a lens, and yet is capable of changing its 
shape; a fact that is ignored when a person reads in a reclining 
position. 

5. The eye-ball flattens when used with the head thrown back, as 
in a reclining chair; or when the feet are up in front, as in the now 
common habit of sitting with the feet on another chair, a table, or 
mantel. This compels the use of glasses. 

6. Any jarring, shaking or other motion of the body while read¬ 
ing does great injury to the nerves of vision, and soon impairs the 
eyesight; although men and women of a very vigorous constitution 
may escape the penalty for a few years. 

7. Pressing against the eyeballs when rubbing the eyelids causes 
them to flatten and thus produce dimness of vision. Many persons 
are continually rubbing the eyelids because they itch. The rubbing 


FAILING EYESIGHT*. 


417 


increases the itching, because it prevents the tenderness from heal¬ 
ing. 

A simple cure for any redness, rawness or other irritation of the 
eyelids is the application of eye-salve, which can be obtained of any 
Iruggist. Be sure to have it fresh, not old and stale. The direc¬ 
tions are found on the package. A very little will accomplish much 
good. It may make the eyeballs smart a little, but that will disap¬ 
pear after a few applications if the quantity is reduced. 

Strong eyes are said to give their possessor both pleasure and 
confidence, while weak eyes that look and feel hot and tired certainly 
give no delight to their owner, nor to those who look back into them. 

It rests the eyes to shut them, if only for a minute at a time, in 
some convenient interval; and if it is in any way possible to lie flat 
on the back for any length of time the gain to the eyes, as well as to 
the whole body, is immense, as it rebuilds nervous tissue. 

Eyelids should never be pressed back on to the eyes, even when 
they feel ever so tired, though it seems a very natural thing to do. 
But as such pressure on the eyeball flattens it and eventually causes 
dimness of sight, it must be guarded against. 

No part of the body needs the full circulation of the blood more 
than the eyes; and this is denied them when the attempt is made to 
read while lying upon the back. Such indiscretion is counterbal¬ 
anced by a prone position, face down; but this brings the eyes too 
near to the page to be read, and another kind of injury follows. 
The practice of holding the face down for a few moments at a time 
with the eyes shut will bring the blood gently into the eyeballs 
and thus repair their waste. It balances the nervous rest. 

For general purposes the very best exercise that can be given to 
the eyeballs, and the most beneficial for the optic nerve, is the fol¬ 
lowing : 

COLD WATER EYE-BATH. 

Every morning after thoroughly washing the part of the face that 
includes the eyelids, so as to remove all dirt and accumulations, 
give the eyes a cold water bath in the following manner: 

1. Get as small a receptacle as possible that will admit the face so 
that the eyes may be placed under water. A bowl or large glass will 
serve the purpose. 

2. Keep this in a clean place, and reserve it for this use. 

3. Scald it out before each bath. 


478 SPECIAL TREATMENT No, THIRTY-THREE. 

4. When the face and eyelids are clean, allow the face io come 
down into the water. 

5. As the coldness of the water is a healthful stimulant to the 
eyes, it should not cause any pain when the eyes are in a condition to 
receive it. Therefore it must be reached by a careful and gradual 
approach. 

6. The first use of water against the open eyes should be cau¬ 
tiously tried. Let the water for three days’ application be tepid or 
blood warm. On the fourth day let it be about ninety-five degrees; 
and so cool it five degrees a day until it is cold; that is, about sixty 
degrees. 

7. In using it each time, put enough water in the receptacle to 
enable you to get the eyes under water. Then take a full breath, 
shut the eyes, lower the face and open the eyes to their full width, 
allowing them to stay a few seconds in the water. After a few 
weeks the benefit will be very marked. Provided no pain is caused, 
the colder the water the better. Nature permits a temperature be¬ 
low zero to strike the eyeball without hurting it, as is seen in winter 
in cold climates where people go about with open eyes. 

8. The cold water serves to displace the ordinary mucus that lu¬ 
bricates the eyeball; thus bringing a new supply to cleanse it. But 
it also cools the eye farther inward than the outward air can do; and 
this brings on a very gentle reaction which calls the blood into the 
whole structure, and renews aqueous and vitreous liquids within, 
which is of the highest importance. 

9. If this is done regularly, thoroughly and faithfully, the result 
will surprise you. Always remember to avoid it if it causes any 
pain. 

To show its value we cite the following facts: 

While stopping at a hotel where there were hundreds of guests, 
we noticed a lady who afterwards told us that her age was seventy- 
two. Her hair was only partly gray, and around her temples and 
forehead it retained its natural color, thus giving her an appearance 
of being younger than she was. Set in this framework was a face 
that glowed with health. But the distinguishing features were two 
eyes of extraordinary brightness. We found the cause, and had the 
pleasure of hearing it from her own lips. When thirty-four years 
old she had met a very old gentleman whose clear, bright eyes at¬ 
tracted her attention, and she learned from him the same practice 


failing eyesight. 


479 


that she then adopted and kept np for thirty-eight years. It is 
exactly what we have presented here. 

She had never volunteered the facts to others, but had taken 
pleasure in stating them to those who cared to know them; and had 
been the means of helping many persons. “ Why ” she exclaimed, “ I 
have here a clipping from a periodical that refers to the same sub¬ 
ject. I do not know the source of their information; but here is 
what they say; ” and she handed us the following extract from an 
article on the care of the eyes: 

“ The eyes will be greatly strengthened by putting the face down 
into a glass or eye-cup of water the first thing in the morning and 
opening them under water. This is somewhat difficult to do at 
first, but if the water for two or three days be tepid and gradually 
made colder by imperceptible degrees until it is no shock to put the 
face into quite cold water, it will soon become quite easy and is very 
vigorating and refreshing. 

“ If done regularly every day this treatment alone will preserve 
the sight into quite old age. There is a right and a wrong way of 
wiping the eyes after this, too, and the right way is to pass the soft 
towel very gently from the outer angle inward toward the nose. 

“ If after a long day the eyes feel so hot and tired that they seem 
dim when one tries to read or to do a little necessary sewing for 
oneself they should be given the above treatment again the same 
day. The same treatment is recommended if the lids are apt to be 
crusted or to stick together in the mornings or to smart during the 
daytime.” 

While discussing this matter with a gentleman of great intelli¬ 
gence, he told us that he had, some time before, fallen into the habit 
by accident; and, finding the cold water so refreshing to the eyes, he 
had continued the use of it every morning since. In a search for 
more information on the subject we found that it had been recom¬ 
mended by eye-specialists in a certain locality, and had been found 
the most beneficial thing that could be done for the sight. 

Against all efforts to maintain the normal strength of the eyes, 
the overwork to which they are subjected by men and women who 
are to read or write much must always be a barrier to success. Our 
advice to them is to get glasses. It is not possible to maintain or to 
acquire perfect sight under any of the following conditions: 

1. If you are compelled to write more than five hours daily. 

2. If you read more than five hours daily. 


480 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-THREE. 

3. If the time you spend in reading and writing equals a total of 
six hours daily. The two occupations help to furnish such variety 
as is slightly helpful to the eyes. 

4. If you read in a carriage, street car or railroad car, while it is 
in motion. 

5. If you read newspaper print; for the human eyes were not 
made for the fine reading-type now used in the papers. One of the 
best specialists in America says that “ more eyes are ruined by the 
newspaper type than by all other causes united.” 

6. If you read in a dimly-lighted room, in the twilight, or in any 
sitting or reclining position that throws the head back of a perpen¬ 
dicular line. 

When pain or headache follows or attends the use of the eyes, get 
fitted to glasses at once. Many a man and woman has suffered from 
an inexplainable headache that was solely due to imperfect sight; 
and relief has always come when glasses were obtained, and not 
before. Only recently a woman declared that nothing on earth 
could stop her head from aching. She said that if Ralstonism could 
do it, she would be its friend for life. We saw her read and noted 
the effort she made; and we said: “ Your head pains you now more 
than it did a few moments ago ?” “ Yes,” said she. “ Your terrible 
headaches are due to your eyes. Get fitted at once to glasses.” She 
did as we advised; and all the pain disappeared; nor has she had a 
headache since. She now asks: “ Why could not someone have told 
me this years ago and have spared me so much misery ? ” She had 
wasted hundreds of dollars on medicines and had done her stomach 
and blood great injury, trying to cure what was due to a cause, the 
removal of which was the only remedy that was natural or rational. 

Thousands of people are suffering from headaches that are due 
solely to this one cause—the abuse of the eyes. One good rule 
should always be borne in mind and adopted, and that is to STOP 
the instant there is any pain in the eyeballs or in the head as a 
result of trying to see under any difficulty whatever. Close the 
eyes and give them a rest; the oftener the better. This saves them 
to a great extent. 

Defective eyesight, when due to organic or other disease, can never 
be cured by treatment of the eyes. A man who was apparently well 
found that his sight was failing. He went to a store to be fitted for 
glasses. An examination led to the discovery that the kidneys were 
badly diseased, and the oculist said: “ We can do nothing for you. 


FAILING EYESIGHT. 


481 


A physician is needed.” The man at once placed himself under a 
doctor’s care; but he had little to do except to prepare for the under¬ 
taker. 

Nervous disorders quickly affect the sight. 

Special nervous conditions are attended by defective vision; the 
latter coming and going with them. 

Anaemia, or poor blood, is likewise accompanied by poor eyesight. 

Bilious attacks cause the eyes to become clouded. 

Uric acid in the blood does great injury to the optic nerve. 

Excessive meat eating; indulgence in sweets; the use of vinegar; 
and any food that is difficult of digestion may cause clouds, dots, 
flakes, chains and other objects to float before the gaze. Alcohol, 
tobacco, coffee and tea, do the same thing in about eighty per cent, 
of cases. One person in five seems exempt from ill-effects in the use 
of tobacco and alcohol. The continued use of coffee hurts the eyes. 
Cocoa and chocolate do injury when taken to excess, as they affect 
the kidneys. 

We present the foregoing facts because any eye-treatment is sure 
to fail when the cause of defective vision is to be found in organic, 
nervous or blood diseases, or in wanton abuse. A young man asked 
to be given a remedy for failing eyesight. We told him that he must 
first stop smoking cigarettes; he declined to do so, and has since 
died from their use. 

You will find no eye remedy helpful if your defective eyesight is 
due to causes that are not in the eyes themselves. To this fact you 
must become reconciled; and the sooner you get to work on the dis¬ 
ease in the body that gives origin to it; or the sooner you abandon 
habits that hurt the vision, the quicker you can find relief. Look 
out to avoid abuses. So simple a thing as reading in a room where 
there is smoke, or trying to use the eyes through clouds of tobacco 
smoke, will injure them. 

Veils hurt the eyes very much. In a city where girls and women 
wear heavy veils, glasses are more in use than elsewhere. Dotted 
veils are worse. Large mesh, light veils are the best. 

Constipation almost invariably injures the eyesight, and we have 
had many reports of great improvement in the vision following our 
treatment for constipation. 

If we have a member who is intelligent enough to understand all 
the contingencies involved, we can then proceed to a cure under the 
following plan: 

31 


482 SPECIAL, TREATMENT No. THIRTY-THREE. 


1. When defective vision is due to any abuse or any cause out¬ 
side that of the eye itself, do not attempt to deal with the latter 
instead of the former. 

2. When defective vision is due to some conditions in the eyeball, 
then find if it is caused by a change of shape of the latter, or by lack 
of healthful blood circulation, or by any of the following special 
diseases of the eyeball. 

a. Watering of the Eyes , which is excessive tear flow. This is 
cured by resting the eyes, and by opening them under water, as 
previously stated. It is not well to allow them to remain against the 
water more than a few seconds. 

b. Eye Strain. This is due to using the sight in a dim light, or 
by any of the abuses already enumerated. Prolonged rest is the only 
cure. 

c. Defective Nutrition. This comes from lack of full blood cir¬ 
culation with a wholesome food supply for the blood. The means of 
improvement must come from a plain but healthful and strengthen¬ 
ing diet, on the one hand; and from such methods as will invite the 
full blood circulation into the eyeball. For this there is three lines 
of help: One is to open the eyes under water as previously ex¬ 
plained ; another is massage; and the third is the nine eye-exercises. 
Eve-Massage will he discussed later herein. 

d. Loss of Shape of the ball. There are many causes at work 
that change the shape of the eyeball. The constant rubbing of the 
eye tends to flatten it, and the vision is correspondingly affected. 
The habit of leaning the head to one side when reading or writing 
tends to develop an entirely different result, as the ball is molded to 
each kind of use to which it is put. Stooping when using the eyes 
elongates them as it calls the blood forward; and this is the opposite 
of flattening them. The best cure is to use the nine eye-exercises, if 
done gently and without causing pain; and if aided by opening the 
eyes under water. It is the coldness of the water that does the most 
good. To open the eyes under warm or cool water is useless; 
and too much water against the eyeball hurts it, as the human eye is 
not like that of a fish. 

THE NINE EYE MOVEMENTS. 

We give at this place the nine eye movements to restore the shape 
of the ball where it has aged or lost its proper rotundity through 
careless use or by reason of any of the errors named. A diagram of 


FAILING EYESIGHT. 


483 


the nine positions to which the eyes are to be moved will be seen on 
the accompanying page. 

In making use of these exercises remember two things: 

A. They will accomplish nothing beneficial if you overdo them, 
as the muscles will become easily irritated. They should be started 
as gently as you use the eyes when you turn to look at an object. 
These nine movements are merely the natural uses of the eyes, 
except that they are eventually made in larger range and with a 
regularity of change so as to cover the whole scope of vision. 

B. They will be useless if you do not avoid the foods, drinks 
and habits referred to in the earlier pages of this treatment. What 
is the use of fighting poor eyesight at the eyes, and maintaining the 
cause of it at the stomach ? 

It will be noticed that there are three rows of position in the 
illustration on the page. The first is the upper row, and in this row 
all the eye movements are upward to the ceiling. 

In the middle row the movements are on the level. 

In the third row the movement^ are down to the floor. 

The three movements on the right of the diagram are to be made 
by turning the eyes to the right so as to see the righthand side of 
the room. They are represented by Figures 3, 6 and 9. 

The three movements to the left are to be made by turning the 
eyes to the left side of the room. They are represented by Figures 
1, 4 and 7. 

In the central vertical row of movements the eyes do not turn to 
the right or to the left, but are between these two extremes. They 
are represented by Figures 2, 5 and 8. 

The head must not be moved; not even in the slightest degree. 
If there is any motion of the head, it will take away from the action 
of the muscles that move the eyeballs. 

All movements begin and end with number 5. This is the middle 
center, for it is midway between the right and lefthand sides, and 
the upper and lower rows. 

To correctly practice these movements keep the head immovable 
and glance from five to back in the following order: 

5 to 1, then 1 to 5; 5 to 2, then 2 to 5; 5 to 3, then 3 to 5; 5 to 
4, then 4 to 5; 5 to 6, then 6 to 5; 5 to 7, then 7 to 5; 5 to 8, then 
8 to 5; 5 to 9, then 9 to 5. 

These are the short-range movements and should be tried as 
gently as possible, for the least overdoing at the start will strain the 


484 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-THREE. 















FAILING EYESIGHT. 


485 


muscles and make them ache. They can be tried for a minute the 
first day, then add a half minute each day for a week. 

By this time the long-range movements can be tried. They are as 
follows: 

5 to 1 to 9; then back and forth from 1 to 9, and 9 to 1, for a 
minute. Then from 5 to 3 to 7, and back and forth from 7 to 3 
and 3 to 7. Then 1 to 3, 3 to 1; 4 to 6, 6 to 4; 7 to 9, and 9 to 7. 
The best single long-range movement is from 4 to 6 and 6 to 4. 

This last action may be continually practiced with splendid re¬ 
sults after the muscles have passed the stage of their tenderness 
which should be reached by slow degrees. It is possible to practice 
these movements while going to sleep at night, only the relative di¬ 
rections will have to be somewhat changed. Instead of looking up 
at the ceiling for the upper row of movements, the eyes should be 
raised to look towards the hair above the forehead, and so on with 
the others, making them look to the right and left temples and to 
the right and left parts of the body. This applies to reclining posi¬ 
tions. 

There are many opportunities for this kind of practice that will 
not take any time from other duties or studies. 

The ability to hold the eyelids fixed and wide open while moving 
the eyeballs is one of the tests of facial control as used in the 
dramatic profession. It is always useful in ordinary life, as it gives 
a greater apparent size to the eyes. Old age closes the lids little by 
little, until the eyes of most people seem about half their normal 
size. This tendency to the shrinking of the lids may be wholly over¬ 
come by the nine eye movements just described, only the practice 
should be in long range. 

Pure food, pure air, pure habits, plenty of sleep, say seven hours 
at night and an hour or more of rest at noon; these will help the 
eyes more than all the medicines and other aids in the world. Do 
not doctor the results alone; pay attention to the causes; and they 
are found in the diet and in the habits of life. Eead this treatment 
as many times as you feel that you can get new light from it. 

At all events be gentle with the eyes. 

Outside aids for external application have some value, but they 
should not be used on the plan of doctoring results; they will help 
you if you are doctoring both the results and the causes at the same 

time. 

Eye-washes should not be used continually. 


486 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-THREE. 

Eye-salves are excellent for the lids, if they are made by responsi¬ 
ble concerns. 

The best thing to apply to the eyeballs is the following: Take forty 
grains of boric acid and dissolve in four ounces of rosewater or dis¬ 
tilled water, or clean rain water; then filter through a fine cloth. In 
a Pply^ n g> throw the head back and allow a few drops to fall upon 
the eye, when the lids are wide open. The use of an eye-dropper is 
a little more convenient. Great care must be taken to keep every¬ 
thing clean that comes in contact with the water to be used. 

EYE-MASSAGE is made much of in methods of treatment for 
defective vision. But any reasonable person can see that a diseased 
eye, or optic nerve, cannot be benefited by such a process. It is 
true that massage is of the highest value when it serves to bring a 
greater blood circulation into all the parts, thereby supplying 
them with nutrition in quantities required for growth and health. 
Massage always tends to bring new blood and new material into the 
part of the body to which it is applied. We have known of many 
cases where thin, skinny necks and chests have been developed into 
a surprising degree of fulness by massage; and the results so ob¬ 
tained have seemed miraculous because of their supposed improba- 
bility. Eye-massage accomplishes something along the same line, 
but far less than advertisers claim for it. It is valuable only when 
performed as follows: 

1. Place the wrist of the left hand on the bone of the left eye in 
such a way that the little finger side of the hand is on a line over 
the nose. Poll the wrist over the edge of the curved bone from the 
top of the nose to the temple. At first this will not affect the eye 
at all. Little by little the wrist may be made to press the flesh of the 
forehead more and more down upon the eyeball, but no pressure 
must be allowed upon the latter. The rolling action of the wrist 
upon the overhanging flesh serves as the best form of massage. 

2. The second form is to carry the flat of the palm, pressed hard 
upon the skin of the forehead over the eye, up and down as far as 
possible, taking the skin with it. When carried upward the skin 
pulls upon the muscles that are inward and about the eye. When 
pressed downward, the whole inward structure is affected. 

3. What is done with one eye should be repeated on the other side 
of the face with the other hand at the other eye. 

4. The next form of massage is to press the fingers, flatwise, upon 


FAILING EYESIGHT. 


487 


the temples, move the latter up and down, forward and back, and in 
a circular motion. 

5. The last form consists in placing the tips of the fingers on the 
bone under the eye, then move the skin right and left, and up and 
down, care being taken to avoid pressing the ball itself. 

6. Immediately before each of the parts of this massage, spend 
one minute in the faithful practice of the nine eye-movements, so 
that fully half of the time may be devoted to that exercise. 

If the foregoing details of eye-massage are faithfully executed, 
the results will prove of the very greatest importance in restoring 
a healthy condition to the vision. You can readily tell if such re¬ 
sults are to be obtained; for nothing responds so quickly as do the 
eyes under the effects of this special massage; and the very first fif¬ 
teen minutes will give you satisfaction by reason of a clearer vision 
and a more healthful feeling in and through the eyes themselves. 
If there is some other disease lurking behind in the blood, the 
nerves or the organs, then massage will not make you feel any better. 
Because the eyes are in a weak state it does not necessarily follow 
that they are directly at fault. All diseases, maladies, disorders and 
abuses shine through the eyes. Cure them, and there is nothing left 
to do for the vision, as it will come into its own perfection of itself. 
But if the first practice in massage shows results in making the 
vision clearer and the eyeballs feel better, then it is safe to say there 
is no serious disease behind them that is injuring them. 

Avoid cupping the eyes; do not allow suction cups or half-globes 
to draw them. Do not use any mechanical device upon the eyes. 

Keep the blood pure and half the victory is won in the start. 

Besolve to follow every detail of this treatment, omitting nothing 
at all, and you will find that the very best method of caring for the 
eyes is herein presented. 

Be sure to act understanding^. 

Changing the range of vision is one of the most effective means of 
bringing vitality into the optic nerve and into the eye itself. This 
is done by looking at different objects at different distances; begin¬ 
ning with one, ten, or twelve inches from the face; then getting a 
correct focus upon one a yard away; and so on. Be sure to select 
objects of such size as can be seen without the least eye-strain. It 
is better to practice this out of doors, and to extend the range for 
miles, if the open view will permit. We had a member whom we 
advised to adopt this exercise one summer upon the piazza at his 


488 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-THREE. 

home; and he acquired such marked results that he was at a loss how 
to account for it. He would look at an object near by, then glance 
to one a little farther away, and so on till he reached the horizon; 
then he would go back again and keep this up for five minutes at a 
time, and several times each day. His sight became absolutely per¬ 
fect. 

What was the reason ? In the first place, he was trying to live the 
life of a Ealstonite, and was getting his blood and general health 
into the best possible condition. This of itself would improve the 
eyesight. In the second place, the changing of the range of vision 
compelled the eye to do a great variety of work; as the whole 
mechanism and the feeding to it of the vital force were specially 
taxed under conditions that caused no strain ; and the growth was 
the same as if the body had gone into physical training under a 
variety of changing exercises. Then it is well known that the 
strongest eyes in the world are those of the American Indian who 
makes a similar use of them from habit and temperament. 

Another excellent practice, when performed so as to avoid excess 
of brightness in the light, is to pass frequently from a bright room 
to a dark one and note the time it takes to see objects in the latter 
This causes a continual adjustment of the lens, and is very bene¬ 
ficial. 

The eyes improve in their vital energy in proportion as the lungs 
are developed and the respirations are deeper. But organic or other 
diseases cannot be made to withdraw their injurious effects on the 
eyes by this or any other one method of cure. 

We might have loaded this treatment with many words and terms 
that are technical, and have thus discouraged you at the start, but 
we have discarded all difficulties and have come into the plainest 
everyday language for the sake of making the ideas clear to you. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 34 



Why one person is larger than another through the possession 
of fat is due to the collection of fatty globules or cells, which, 
once in the body, can only be reduced by being collapsed. The 
collapsing or shrinking of fat cells is not an easy task. 

Each fat cell contains mostly water and carbon. The life of the 
cell is transferred to other cells, so that increase is possible from 
indulgence in water and carbon-foods. Persons who eat but little 
fat-producing food remain as fat as ever; a lessening of the diet 
being unavailable as a cure. Exercise breaks down or collapses 
many of these fat cells, but, as not all can be destroyed, the first 
rest restores the progeny, and the reaction after an exhausting 
period of exercise seems to make the flesh even stouter. The fact 
is this: A person whose body has a disposition to grow fat cannot 
easily reduce the flesh. The whole secret lies in the ability to 
cause a collapse of the fat cells in a greater proportion than they are 
produced. 

Before discussing the best and most recent methods for reducing 
obesity, it would be well to look for a moment at the causes of ex¬ 
cessive fat. 

This condition may be inherited. 

Dr it may be the result of sitting too much. 


490 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FOUR. 

Or it may be the result of eating too much food that contains 
carbon. 

Or it may come from taking too much water into the system. 

Or it may be chargeable to excessive eating. 

Or it may result from eating rich food. 

Or it may be due to a sluggish inactivity of the mind and body, 
or either. 

Or it may come from too much sleep. 

Or it may be due to stimulants, fermented drinks, coffee, tea, 
light drinks and other fluids that are not assimilated, or that 
possess substances that are foreign to the needs of the blood; for 
blood must be made from elements that are necessary to its com¬ 
position; and no one pretends that beer, tea, coffee, etc., become 
part of the blood. 

As long as the accumulated fat remains stored up as adipose 
tissue it does no harm, except for the inconvenience that it causes; 
but as soon as it begins to enter into the cellular elements of the 
body, especially of the muscles, it becomes a source of danger. 
The tissue are degenerated. This is more to be feared in the 
muscle of the heart, for the least over-effort of the body under such 
conditions will stop the beating of this organ. 

The methods by which obesity can be cured are not such as will 
appeal to fat people, and will probably not be followed. We will, 
however, present them here, and will add the statement that they 
have been put in practice by many men and women who were 
determined to change their habits of life and thus secure greater 
comfort in the freedom from this burden. While the method to be 
given here will be discarded by nine persons in ten, the tenth will 
succeed in reducing their weight to normal conditions. It rests with 
you to say whether or not you are willing to enter upon a period of 
self-denial, or prefer the fat to the inconvenience of the cure. 

The steps in this treatment are as follows: 

1. There must be an early hour of retiring, for the natural func¬ 
tions of the body are in harmony with nature herself, and there is 
but one natural time for retiring, and that is in the early night. 
You should be in bed at nine o’clock every night in the week 
until the fat begins to lessen. This is one of the steps that most 
every person will object to. But the next is harder. 

2. You must be out of bed at five o’clock every day in the six 
months from the first of October to the first of April, and at four 


EXCESSIVE FAT. 


491 


o’clock during the other six months of the year. The purpose of 
these two steps is to secure the natural operation of the functions of 
the body; for all persons who have studied obesity agree that it is 
a disease arising in the disturbed functions. 

3. You must not sit more than a few minutes at a time unless 
you are in some place where it would be bad taste to arise. Yet 
all such places must be avoided as much as possible. Standing is 
necessary for not less than twelve hours per day. You may rest 
a hundred times in that period, so that you stand most of the day. 
You can write much better standing than sitting. Get the high 
desks that once were so much in use. Almost everything that you 
now do sitting can be done in a standing attitude. Even sewing can 
be done that way, as well as reading. The reason is this: when the 
body is on the feet all the organs and functions seek their normal 
operations; and there is no other position where this is true. 

4. You must be active with the muscles, but not in any systematic 
manner, unless you choose to adopt some plan of physical exercise. 
Speed of movement is essential. Fat people are slow. Thin 
people are quick in their many little movements. 

5. No fluid should enter the body except water. Soups, stews 
and all liquids or fluid foods should be omitted entirely until the 
fat is under control, so that it will decrease to whatever extent 
you choose. 

6. Water should be taken as follows: On rising in the morning, 
clean the teeth and rinse out the mouth; then use salt or listerine 
on the teeth as an antiseptic. After this is done, drink half a 
pint of water, and take no more until midway between the morning 
and noon meal; then no more until the middle of the afternoon; 
then no more until just as you retire at night. Be sure that you 
do not drink more than the half pint each time. This will allow 
you four drinks each day, and a total of one quart of water in the 
twenty-four hours. Do not add to this amount. You may de¬ 
crease it some if you wish. Some systems allow only a pint of 
water for each twenty-four hours. 

7. When you are thirsty put some bits of cracked ice in the 
mouth and allow them to melt. This must not be done continually, 
but only at rare intervals. 

8. Avoid tea, coffee, all drinks and all liquors. Let no fluid 
but water enter the body. 


492 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FOUR. 

9. Every night just before going to bed take a bath in water that 
is nearly as hot as you can bear it, to which you are to add more 
hot water until the temperature is as high as it can be endured. 
Let the bath room be ninety degrees. Remain in the tub only 
a minute after the greatest heat has been put in the water; then 
let the water all out, and run salt tepid water in, then jump in, and 
gradually add cool water until the temperature is down to seventy. 
Jump out and dry the body very quickly by rapid motions; and get 
to bed. If thirsty use a little cracked ice in the mouth. 

10. The diet is as follows: 

Use bread that has been baked for two hours and then laid aside 
for four days, made at home, and carefully wrapped to keep it from 
drying. When using it, toast to a deep brown, and soak in the fat 
gravy of steak, allowing it to be made quite moist by the fat. 
You will at once say that fat makes fat. So it may, but the fat 
of meat does not make abnormal fat in the body, as has been 
proved. Oils and fats are acted upon in a normal manner; while 
sugars, starches and vegetable fats are acted upon in an abnormal 
manner. This distinction has been overlooked and should be kept 
in mind. But when the burdens of old age are met with, the 
question of oils and fats becomes complicated, for the intestines 
are not able to digest them at that period of life. There must be 
some form of fuel given daily to the body. If sugars and starches 
are omitted, fats and oils must take their place; and vice versa. 
Obesity is best reduced by omitting the sugars and starches. 

The kind of bread described contains some starches, but in the 
best form and condition for the stomach and general system. It 
is the most wholesome food. 

Two slices of bread may be taken in the morning, two at noon, 
and one at the evening meal. All may be dipped in the fat gravy 
of beef, such as steak. 

For meat take a piece of beefsteak, cook it enough to heat it all 
through with a high temperature that will sear its surface, then 
chop it to a fine mass in its own fat; in this put the whites of two 
fresh eggs ; on this put either red pepper or horse radish, as much 
as can be borne; and eat the same at the meal with the bread as 
described. The quantity may vary. But the average amount of 
this meat and egg mixture should be what would half fill a tea¬ 
cup of ordinary size. This can be taken at each of the three main 
meals. The meat may be varied by substituting lamb, mutton, fowl, 


EXCESSIVE FAT. 


493 


game, or any other wholesome kind, omitting all pork; although 
ham and bacon may be eaten in their usual forms, but not mixed 
with eggs. Beef is always the better meat in any diet. Re-cooked 
animal food is never wholesome. 

Vegetables that are allowed are the following: Peas, beans, 
spinach, beet tops, celery, lettuce, squash and all vegetables that 
grow above the ground except tomatoes. 

Potatoes and all vegetables that grow in the ground are to be 
omitted, except that celery is allowed. 

All mellow, and fully ripe, but sour fruits are allowed. Nuts of 
all kinds except the oily varieties are good. The best nuts are 
almonds, pecans, walnuts, hazel and hickory nuts. 

Do not eat peanuts and chestnuts. 

Fish of all kinds except the very oily varieties, such as salmon 
and mackeral, are allowed. 

A mid-forenoon lunch and a late evening lunch are allowed, and 
they may be made from any of the foods allowed for the regular 
meals. 

At first the quantity may be as much as you need to appease an 
ordinary appetite; but, after you have been on the above diet for 
a week and your weight has not shown the loss of even a pound, 
then you should gradually lessen the quantity, but retain the diet. 
Eat nothing and drink nothing unless it is specially allowed in 
this treatment, and is expressly included. Take nothing for 
granted. 

Weigh yourself once each week. As soon as you find your weight 
being reduced, do not let it lose more than one pound a week, for 
sudden changes will bring on kidney or liver disturbances, and 
these should be avoided. 

If a reduction of the foregoing diet does not cause a loss of 
flesh, do not be afraid to reduce it still more. Get to that point 
where you lose one pound a week. This is sure to come. There 
is not the slightest doubt in the matter if all the requirements of 
this treatment are lived up to faithfully. 

When you find your weight what it should be, then stop the 
treatment as gradually as possible, adding more of the starchy 
foods, potatoes, etc., as you may prefer them. 

In using this treatment, be sure to read every word again and 
again. One reading is not sufficient. A dozen readings will, we 
guarantee, give you new ideas, new light, and new information each 


494 SPECIAL, TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FOUR. 

time. The purpose of this treatment is to effect a cure. It will do 
so if you adopt it fully and persistently. It is worth your while to 
try. It may mean health and even prolonged life to you. Do not 
pass by any detail slightingly. If you are in earnest remember that 
the best medicine is nature, the best cure is regime, the best doctor 
is common sense, and the best treatment is to build the body out 
of the materials that go to make the body. All else is sure to invite 
a penalty. 













Trow Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 35 






The inability to sleep at night is due to one or more of three 
things: 

1. To wrong habits of life. 

2. To temperament. 

3. To the first steps in insanity. 

The first or seco'nd may be the cause of the third, for the mind 
may or may not break down, depending on how it is treated by its 
own and should-be master. 

It is a very easy matter to overcome insomnia when the first 
of these three conditions produces it; that is, when it is due to 
wrong habits of life. The whole study of a cure is then told in one 
chapter, the title of which is the willingness of the patient to follow 
instructions to the very letter, and to be honest about it. 

Most persons who seek the cure are sly, dishonest and scheming 
in their dealings with themselves and with those who seek to aid 
them; though they may be honest in all other dealings. They will 
break over the rules on the least temptation; a temptation that or¬ 
dinarily a child would be able to resist if left to its own judgment. 

To show what we mean by this sly method, we will cite the fol¬ 
lowing incident: A woman who was prey to this disease of the 
nervous system, and who tried to make herself believe that it was due 

(495) 


496 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE- 

10 a bad heart, or bad stomach, or some other bad part of the body, 
but who in fact was a glutton at the table and between meals, got 
to such a state that she could not sleep nights. She had an accumu¬ 
lation of troubles which she visited upon herself and her husband, 
as well as on all her relatives, visitors and callers until she was voted 
a bore on account of her tales of woe. Her children grew up with 
pinched faces and sunken eyes, a reflex condition of the life they 
were compelled to live; and this glutton spent money and time with 
doctors and at sanatoriums, in the hope of finding a cure. She 
appealed to her relatives to take an interest in her case, and often 
made the remark: “ Something will have to be done.” A specialist 
was called to her aid. He told her that she ate too much, and she 
got angry and said: “ Why, doctor, I eat very little. Indeed, I have 
no appetite at all.” The doctor requested her to write down each 
and every article she ate for one week. This she did and omitted 
from it the following items: Nibbles of candy, amounting to over 
two pounds a week in small nibbles, enough to tear the stomach to 
pieces and ruin the intestinal canal as well as the heart, brain and 
lungs. Then there were nibbles of cake taken at meals, between 
meals, and at places where she visited. Then there were drinks of 
soda water, which she had forgotten; although she had been told 
that all charged water injured the colon and stomach as well as the 
liver and heart. There were rich meats, rich gravies, drugs, pastry, 
late lunches of babarous things, such as fried oysters, bits of sau¬ 
sage, doughnuts, pork, and all kinds of things that she just nibbled 
at, but did not pretend to eat. No wonder she did not have an ap¬ 
petite. In her report she avoided telling the truth. She could not 
charge it to growing insanity, for her mind was strong enough, as 
was afterwards seen. But she declared that the specialist did not 
understand her case, for he was treating he for insomnia when the 
fault was with the heart or elsewhere. With her brain capacity, 
which was of fair proportion, she could not summon up enough 
ordinary sense to understand that the heart responds to the condi¬ 
tion of the stomach. So she dismissed the expert and began taking 
advertised medicines, until she was prostrate and about to give up. 
Then her husband, who had all the time been patient, told her in 
very plain language that she was a glutton of the nibbling kind, 
of the order that never had an appetite, but could eat up the whole 
house on nibbled, etc., etc. At first she cried, then went very prop¬ 
erly into hysterics, then woke up and came to her senses. She re- 


INSOMNIA. 


497 


solved to cultivate the art of honesty; honesty with herself and with 
her doctors. After that she had nothing to do but io adhere faith¬ 
fully to the accepted plan of cure which we published some years 
ago, and which physicians and experts have used very largely in 
preference to any other treatment. She got well and is well to-dav. 
The heart trouble that was supposed to be chronic and constitu¬ 
tional disapoeared, the liver got well, the stomach was repaired and 
the bothersome intestinal canal was free from trouble. 

So great is the proportion of instances of insomnia that may be 
relegated to the first cause that we may safely say that ninety-nine 
cases out of a hundred are due to wrong habits of life. Whether 
this be true in your case or not, it is absolutely necessary that your 
habits be made at once to conform to the plan now to be stated; for 
if you are subject to insomnia by reason of temperament or incipient 
insanity, you will not find relief as long as your habits are at vari¬ 
ance with the demands of nature. 

Insomnia is the inability to fall asleep, or to remain in sound 
slumber during the night. In its worst cases the patient lies in 
bed as wide awake as if it were morning, generally dropping into a 
fragmentary slumber toward the end of night. This indicates a 
serious condition of the nervous .system and must be checked at 
once, or the end is insanity, with a probability of suicide interven¬ 
ing. All victims of insomnia are or have been late retirers, and 
without a single exception, unless actually insane through it all, 
thejr have been reversers of the wedge-shape use of day. We can¬ 
not offer any hope of a cure where the patient is mentally unsound; 
for the hallucinations of morbid thoughts will play havoc despite 
the best efforts of medicine or regime. We can, however, check 
the breaking down of the mind by checking the disease of insomnia. 

With the exception stated, which is not really this malady but 
another quite different, we guarantee a complete cure if the direc¬ 
tions are followed. We have referred to the use of day as wedge- 
shaped. This figure must be clearly understood, or the quick and 
complete restoration of normal conditions can never be attained. 
If you will draw the picture of a wedge with the broad end up¬ 
ward and the pointed end downward, then mark the broad end 
morning till noon, and the middle noon till evening, and the lower 
third evening till slumber time, you will get an approximate idea 
of the meaning of the natural activities of a day of life. The 
victims of insomnia reverse this, and seek to force sleep upon them- 
32 


49S SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE. 


selves by drugs, ihan which no method of destroying the mind can 
be more certain. The graves of suicides and of the insane bear 
witness to this most irrational of all courses. 

Nothing is more natural to a sound mind under normal conditions 
than sound slumber. Let all conditions be made normal, and a. cure 
of this widely prevailing malady is as certain as that the next day’s' 
sun will rise. On the other hand, it is also possible to establish un¬ 
natural sleep; that is, under abnormal conditions, as when brought 
on by a drug or by extreme exhaustion. Whether the theory of the 
origin of sleep, as due to a fixed ancestral habit associated with the 
revolutions of the earth, is correct or not, the fact that the habit is a 
fixed one will determine the question of its necessity. It has been 
said by some scientists that, if the sun never set, nothing would 
need sleep; but there is so much evidence about us of special design 
that we must regard the setting of the' sun as part of the plan of 
life suited to the actual demands of the animal kingdom. 

There is no life that does not require sleep; and nervous life 
cannot exist without it. It is proved to be a natural requirement 
in the fact that the essence of life comes directly from the sun and 
wanes with it. Vitality begins to show increase in every species 
as the light of day sheds its influence abroad; but, when the orb 
declines toward the west all things, if led by nature, bow their 
heads and seek repose. Of course it is claimed by many nervous 
temperaments that they feel greater vitality at night after sunset 
than in the morning. This feeling is deceptive, for it is based upon 
nervous derangement and a discord with the principles of nature. 
Let any person pass the proper hour of retiring, especially in some 
engagement that wearies, and he will not have much strength the 
next morning; but let him attune his habits to the plan of nature, 
which alone is the only safe guide, and he will find that his vitality 
increases with the dawn of day up to high noon, and faintly wanes 
to the hour of evening. Not only is this true, but he will find his 
morning vitality fully four times that of his best evening or night 
vitality, unless he has mortgaged the former by a wrong use of the 1 
preceding day. 

Any man or woman who is a victim of insomnia should lose no 
time in getting release. The wedge-shaped use must be at once 
adopted. If your time, your duties, your social functions, your con¬ 
venience, your pleasure stand in the way of adopting the proper 
wedge-shaped use of the day, in place of its reverse, you cannot get 


INSOMNIA. 


499 


cured. No drug, no medicine, no treatment, no regime, no travel, 
no sanitarium, no climate can avail you aught; nature stands aghast 
at your defiance; she fixes the penalty, and you pay the price. This 
treatment can be laid aside unread. As stated, we guarantee a cure, 
in every case where the directions are followed. 

The first direction is to reverse the use of the day. By use is 
meant eating, reading, talking, listening, working, studying, and 
anything that taxes the muscles, the nerves, the thought or the 
attention. These, or such of these as you may indulge in, must be 
made top-heavy in the first half of the day, and die away to noth¬ 
ingness by evening. The plan of procedure is simple and will be 
stated so that every person may understand and adopt it with no 
real inconvenience. We do not propose to present any rule of con¬ 
duct that is not capable of being undertaken immediately by every 
person of sensible judgment. 

If you are suffering from insomnia, it is certain that you are 
now using the wedge with the broad end downward, or have done 
so in the past. Perhaps it is in one only of the details we have 
mentioned; it may be in eating, or in reading, or in talking, or in 
listening, or in some one or more of the several uses that the last 
hours of the day and evening may be put to. Leaving out the 
question of mental derangement, we will proceed to meet all exi¬ 
gencies in this matter. 

When the meals of the day- have been used after the wedge- 
shape, or even the hour-glass shape, the natural consequence is 
sleeplessness, if the broad end is at the evening meal. Some per¬ 
sons eat a small breakfast, an average meal at noon, which they call 
lunch, and a fearfully heavy meal late in the day or early in the 
evening, which they call dinner. Others eat a fair breakfast, a thin 
lunch and a big dinner. This is something of the hour-glass shape, 
or two wedges coming together at the close of the day. Naturally, 
a heavy evening meal will destroy some of the appetite for the next 
morning’s breakfast. It also does injury to the health every minute 
of the long hours of the night. Muscle and nerve feeding dishes 
are excellent at morning when the enginery of the body is to be 
prepared for its daily task; but the same strong foods taken before 
a night of coveted rest answer the same purpose that coaling and 
firing the locomotive would after the run is over. The muscles 
and nerves are being driven all night by these same strong foods, 
and there is nothing to induce sleep except sheer weariness amount- 


500 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE- 


ing to exhaustion. Some may sleep through it all, if the waste has 
been very great during the day, as in the case of laborers, although 
experience teaches them that they cannot perform hard work on 
what they are going to eat so well as upon what they have recently 
eaten, and their heaviest meal is at morning or noon. 

It is claimed that no case of insomnia has ever been found 
among those who work hard with the muscles. We do not pretend 
to say whether this is true in all cases or not. On inquiry among 
physicians who have had the most extensive lines of practice, and 
among specialists in this malady, we find it a fixed belief that day 
labor and sleeplessness are impossible. One of these doctors said: 
“ I never had a case of insomnia among the working classes of out¬ 
door laborers; I never heard of such a case, and I do not believe 
there ever was one. I do know of working girls who breathe bad 
air all day in stores and shops, and of clerks likewise, who have 
been unable to sleep at night after a long period of strain, but they 
are not in the laboring class. Toilers at night are possible excep¬ 
tions, but they also are out of the regular class; yet I never heard 
of a case with them.” This opinion has many times been con¬ 
firmed. 

Another physician, who had made a study of the cause of in¬ 
somnia, says: "It is confined to sedentary people; those who lead 
an unbalanced daily life. Nature made the muscles for constant 
hard use. Eight hours a day of vigorous muscular labor is really 
required by every man and woman who wishes to be normal in all 
ways. When they won’t obey this law they suffer. If it comes 
down to the question whether it pays in the long run to disobey 
nature, the solution is to be found in the answer. I put this to the 
test in the case of a wealthy gentleman, who offered me a large fee, 
really a fortune, if I would cure him of insomnia which was rapidly 
touching his reason. At the time he was distracted and miserable. 
A year before I had advised him to give less attention to business, 
particularly at night, and he said he was so situated that he could 
not neglect any part of his work. It was the case of $ cow eating 
grass between the rails of a track; she refused to move, and the 
engine tossed her to one side badly damaged. This man would not 
leaves his business, and was very soon hurled aside by the growing 
malady; after his mind had sadly failed him in a number of in¬ 
stances, which led to greater loss than if he had taken the needed rest 
long before. I told him I would cure him of insomnia if he still had 


INSOMNIA . 


501 


enough mind left to follow my advice. He replied that he was 
unfit for anything else, and would therefore obey me. I told him 
to w T ork out of doors ten minutes one day, twenty minutes the next, 
a half hour the third, an hour the fourth, and increase a half hour 
daily, until he was employing his muscles eight hours on each day 
excepting Sundays, always commencing at the earliest hour possible, 
but never later than six o’clock in the morning, and resting the 
whole evening. I knew that he was eating too heavily at his even¬ 
ing dinner, but I wished to learn if the day’s labor would change 
this custom. It did. He ate a good breakfast. In three weeks lie 
was restored to his full night’s rest, and the worst case of insomnia 
which I had ever doctored was completely cured. It is a positive 
fact that no other treatment could have helped him. Had he taken 
medicines he would have met a horrible death, no one knows how.” 
The lesson to be drawn from the foregoing case is twofold: First, 
those who will not adopt a natural habit because it is inconvenient 
to do so must suffer the consequences of obstinancy; second, the 
malady of insomnia never was and never will be cured by medicines. 

We are assured that the physician above referred to got his full 
reward. The wealthy gentleman and the doctor are both Eal- 
stonites in good standing, and the latter admits that he owes 
his success to the principles of Ealstonism. In another case a man 
of wealth and national prominence had been driven nearly insane 
by sleeplessness, had paid thousands of dollars to specialists, and 
had tried every known remedy, as far as he could, but the malady 
grew worse, and he was a haggard wreck. A physician referred him 
to Ealstonism. He asked: “ What is Ealstonism ? ” “ It is nature.” 
We received a letter from him. We gave him the cure now pre¬ 
sented in these pages. He obeyed every instruction as carefulty as 
a child might follow the bidding of a teacher, and he was com¬ 
pletely cured. He wro + e: “ The restoration to perfect health is 
complete. I sleep soundly every night. Your treatment required 
of me a daily plan of living that I might have found rather incon¬ 
venient before I began doctoring; but I wish to assure you that it 
was of brief duration, and was less troublesome and much pleas¬ 
anter than any part of the doctoring. There is no reason why 
patients should refuse to adopt it even if slightly inconvenient. I 

enclose draft for. to go into the general fund of the 

Ealston Health Club.” His case is one of many thousands of 

others, and we quote more of his letter of gratitude than we other- 



502 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE- 


wise should^, as we wish to show that he seemed surprised that a 
cure was possible without the use of drugs. 

We have already stated that the wedge-shaped use of the day 
was reversed in every case of insomnia, and that its reversal, which 
means the big end at the close of day, may occur in such things 
as eating, working, thinking, and others that throw a burden upon 
the sytem. As the reversal is always found in the diet of a person 
who is troubled w r ith the malady, this should receive first attention; 
and we have already led the way to its consideration by our refer¬ 
ence to the subject herein. There are many physicians who claim 
to produce a cure of sleeplessness by nothing but the prescription 
of a proper diet. “ Let the diet be right, and the logical result is 
sound sleep,” says one of them. Yet, while this is true in theory, 
the activities of the day should conform to the diet. Physical work 
and outdoor life demand as a basis that there should be a good 
breakfast, and the latter is not possible after a big dinner of the 
night before; for a heavy evening meal clogs the system, stagnates 
the liver, exhausts the nervous strength, lowers the tone of the 
digestive organs, and renders the being unfit to demand or to re¬ 
ceive a proper meal the next morning. The wonder is that there 
can be any sleep at all. 

Let us commence aright. In doing so we shall gain a triple 
advantage. First, we shall avoid one of the worst errors of modern 
civilization, namely, a heavy meal at supper time. Second, we shall 
conform in an affirmative manner to the will and wishes of nature. 
Third, the avoidance of error and the adoption of right are sure to 
bring better health in every way. One woman, who subsequently 
threw herself into the river with her child, declared two months 
before: “ You say that I must give up my dinner at six and take it 
at noon. I cannot do this, for it would be contrary to our habits 
for years, and would be inconvenient to others as well as my¬ 
self.” It is quite certain that had she followed instructions she 
and her child would have been living to-day. She had to choose, 
though she did not realize the fact. Yor did she understand that 
a light diet at the evening meal could have been adopted by her 
without affecting those who sat with her at the table. Each person 
may be the chooser of his or her own dishes from the supply at hand. 

The proper diet for the insomniast is one of the quickest means 
of effecting a cure; and it alone will suffice in a majority of cases. 
But where the nervous forms are aggravated, the treatment should 


INSOMNIA. 


503 


be double; that is, the diet should be corrected, and all other details 
of daily habits should be made to conform to the laws of nature. 
We will now present the diet that must be observed. To begin 
with, it must be remembered that foods are divisible into three 
classes: those that supply muscular power in chief, those that supply 
nervous power in chief, and those that supply vital energy called 
calories or heating force. There is no food that is organized by 
nature that is exclusively one kind or the other, unless extracts are 
made of it. In every article of food the carbons or heaters are 
present; and as the system requires a much greater proportion of 
this class than of the other two put together, it would be impossible 
to arrange any meal with them not predominating. Nor can the 
lightest meal of the day avoid all of the other two classes. 

The diet that is useful in this disorder must be distinguished 
from that which causes nightmare and violent dreams; the cure of 
such monstrosities being merely the return to plain common sense 
in eating. Many persons under the age of thirty never suffer from 
insomnia, no matter what amount of abuse they inflict upon their 
stomachs; but they are subject to dreams and often to nigthmare. 
After passing the age of thirty, or thereabout, they break down 
with insomnia. Sometimes a bit of indigestible food at the evening 
meal, as old cheese, mince pie, pastry, cake, game, pork, etc., may 
torment the nerves. All these matters belong outside the range of 
a treatment for insomnia, and may be adjusted by the simplest 
principle of good judgment. 

DIET IN ALL CASES OF INSOMNIA. 

The following diet must be adopted by all persons who wish a 
cure of sleeplessness, no matter whether the cause be errors of life, 
or temperament or incipient insanity. 

There should be five meals each day. 

The breakfast should begin at half-past six in the morning, a 
half hour after rising, and should consist of any of the following 
articles, from which you may make your choice: 

Having drank about two glasses of water soon after you get up, 
you should now avoid drinking again until an hour after breakfast; 
but if you are thirsty you should drink what water you need before 
you start to eat. Then do not drink again until the hour after the 
meal is over. 


504 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY FIVE 

After the water, take fruit. You can choose from the follow¬ 
ing kinds: The juice only of a sweet orange, scooped out with 
an orange spoon; or a pear; or a perfectly ripe and mellow apple of 
agreeable flavor; or a peach; or a nectarine; or a fresh apricot; or 
any other juicy fruit. 

But do not take the nutritive fruits; that is, omit the banana, the 
fig, the date or the prune for the morning fruit. 

Bread should always be the staple morning solid. It ought to be 
made at home with yeast, and baked for two hours, then kept fully 
twenty-four hours and served as you prefer, either lightly toasted or 
else plain, or in the form of milk toast or cream toast. The use of 
butter with the bread must be encouraged, as butter is essential to 
health, for it is the easiest method by which to secure animal fats. 
It is a sort of distilled animal production and has none of the objec¬ 
tions of meat-tissue. Eat all the bread you crave. The fruit and 
the bread and butter, if taken in plenty, will not only sustain life, 
but will keep the body in its best health. 

But potatoes, baked, boiled, or lightly fried without being made 
crisp, or served in any way that secures their mealy condition, will 
be helpful if all the rules are observed. No other vegetables are re¬ 
quired for breakfast. 

For meat, beefsteak, lamb chops, mutton, broiled chicken, fish, 
etc., furnish an abundant supply. 

Eggs may be preferred by persons who do not care to eat meat, 
especially in the summer time. There are many ways of cooking 
eggs, and when complaint is made that the taste of the egg is dis¬ 
agreeable, it is due to ignorance in cooking or in eating it. For 
instance, let an egg be shirred, then stirred while hot, after butter 
and salt have been added, and little squares of toast dropped into 
it, and no person will find the taste objectionable. A single egg 
will furnish all the meat nutrition needed by any sedentary person, 
and two eggs may be taken by a hard worker. The egg is the hot 
weather meat, and should never be cooked hard. 

The following are some of the ways of cooking eggs: 

Boiled, steamed, shirred, scrambled, frieaseed, scalloped, poached, 
poached-with-milk, poached-with-peas, egg-toast shells, egg-tim¬ 
bales, egg-in-nest, buillon-eggs, egg chowder, creamed-eggs, etc. 
It requires no more time to prepare them one way than another, ex¬ 
cept in acquiring the skill by experience; and this variety will 
furnish sufficient change for $ long succession of summer breaks 


INSOMNIA. 


505 


fasts. Eggs must not be taken in any other form than those we 
have just presented. 

No meats, breads, eggs or other articles of food or drink should 
be used except those we have described. 

The meat should be well chewed, and no tissue should be swal¬ 
lowed. 

The bread requires careful and slow mastication in order to be 
acceptable to a weak stomach. The practice of giving time to the 
eating of starchy foods must be encouraged. 

No drink should be taken for breakfast unless there is a craving 
for coffee; and this should be weak and very hot, served with 
cream, but not sweetened. It may be weakened by milk that has 
been brought to the boiling point; but in such cases only enough 
coffee should be added to take away the milk taste, and the drink 
should be sipped and never swallowed in mouthfuls. Our purpose 
is to prevent a flood of liquid from entering the stomach and thus 
driving away the gastric juice which is essential for digestion. 

Coffee must be cooked by the following process: Take coffee 
that is recently ground, but that is not too dark in color. The 
more finely it is ground, the better it is. Put it in the biggin, or 
percolating coffee pot, have some water that has just been brought 
to a boil, and pour it over the coffee; and it is ready to serve. This 
is all that is required. Further cooking draws from it the oils 
and poisons that do so much injury to the system; and re-heated 
coffee is a positive danger to the health. If you are to use coffee at 
all, use it in the way we have stated. Not one cook in a hundred 
knows how to prepare it, for the science of cooking is left to the 
ignorant classes when it really belongs to the intelligent men and 
women. 

After making the coffee in the manner just stated, serve it weak, 
and as a flavor to hot milk, if you do not have a craving for it. 
If it distresses you as it does nearly all who use it, you should omit 
coffee altogether. It has a tempting and inviting flavor, and this 
leads people to drink it and suffer afterwards, and thus to repeat 
the process until the stomach is collapsed. 

If you have a normal stomach you can digest milk; but if there 
are toxins in your system, milk is not liked and will curd. In case 
you wish to drink it, do with it as you should with the coffee, sip 
it, and eat between the sips, taking one sip, then some other food, 


506 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE- 


then another sip, and again food, and so on, and we will promise 
you that you will never find it objectionable or hard to digest. 

It does not reach the stomach. 

Hot milk flavored with chocolate may be sipped in place of the 
coffee, if you prefer. Thus you have several drinks as follows: 

1. Coffee prepared as just stated, with hot water, and served with 
cream: to be sipped, not drank. 

2 . Coffee weakened with hot milk: to be sipped, not drank. 

3. Hot milk flavored with chocolate: to be sipped not drank. 

4. Cold milk: to be sipped, not drank. 

5. Hot milk: to be sipped, not drank. 

Tea must not be touched either hot or cold, weak or strong, iced 
or otherwise. It is sure to cause bladder or other organic trouble. 
It contains indigestible and poisonous tannin that gives a false 
comfort to the nerves, and leads to headaches, weak heart, low 
spirits and depressed digestion. 

Iced tea is one of the most injurious of all concoctions. 

Hot more than one cup or glass of the foregoing drinks should be 
taken, and that should be very slowly sipped to avoid sending a 
flood of fluid to the stomach. Ho water should be taken.at the 
meal. 

But one kind of meat should be eaten, and the eggs are to take 
the place of all meat if they are used. Too much meat is eaten 
by Americans, and the intestines suffer for it. 

A small bit of meat, or one egg is the limit for sedentary per¬ 
sons. As much bread as is desired may be eaten for breakfast, 
and no limit need be put upon the quantity of potatoes, if they 
are mealy and properly cooked. 

If fish is eaten, omit the meat or the egg, and the same if fowl 
is taken; the purpose being to have but one kind of animal food 
eaten for breakfast. 

Eat heartily. 

Do not be afraid to eat all you wish. But at this meal only. 
The later meals are to be restricted as we shall see. 

This is not dieting. 

If you use the eyes in the morning before breakfast, as in read¬ 
ing or writing, take four malted milk tablets. They should be 
in the mouth before you begin to use the eyes. In case you get 
up more than a half hour before breakfast, take the tablets as soon 
as the teeth are cleaned and the mouth rinsed out. 


INSOMNIA. 


507 


THE FORENOON LUNCH. 

At about ten o’clock in the forenoon take a slice of the bread 
referred to, have it toasted, and while hot spread it thick with 
butter, and eat. If hungry enough take two slices. Eat nothing 
else unless it be an apple that is very mellow, and the juice of 
which is pleasant to your palate. 

THE NOON MEAL IN ALL CASES OF INSOMNIA. 

The noon meal must begin with a soup or meat broth of some 
kind. The purpose is to stimulate the stomach and arouse the 
action of the gastric juices. Prior to the meal, if you are thirsty, 
you should drink a glass of cold water; and, at such intervals iu 
the forenoon, you should have taken water; so as to come to the 
noon meal with the thirst quenched. 

Consomme, Bouillon, Oyster Bouillon, Vegetable Soup, Julienne 
Soup, Chicken Soup with Vegetables, Gumbo Soup, Celery Soup, 
Beet Soup, Green Pea Soup, Puree of Split Peas, Asparagus 
Cream Soup, Pearl Barley Soup, Rice Soup, Puree of Potato, 
Vermicelli Soup, Macaroni Soup, Fish Chowder, Potato Chowder, 
Groats Broth, Lamb Broth, Mutton Broth, and extracts of beef 
in various forms. All the foregoing are made from the stock of 
soup which is the product of meat and is familiar to every house¬ 
keeper. 

No other soups or broths are allowed. Here are two dozen, and 
any cook who wishes to furnish a variety of one kind a day each 
week can select the best seven out of the group. The thinner the 
soup, as to thickness of contents, the better it is, for it is not inten¬ 
ded as the main food of the noon meal; although we have seen hun¬ 
gry invalids take so eagerly to certain well prepared soups that 
they filled up on them and were satisfied; eating bread with them. 

The next course might be fish. We omitted the shell fish, as 
oysters and clams are not allowed, except the flavor of oysters in 
one of the soups. 

If fish is to be eaten, then all other meat must be omitted, for 
the prevalence of animal food will not bring health. 

If fish is to be omitted, then you will have the following meats 
to select from: 

Boiled Mutton, Broiled Tongue, Roast Beef, Roast Steer, Roast 
Mutton, Roast Lamb, Braised Beef, Ragout of Beef, Ragout of 
Mutton, Scalloped Mutton, Roast Turkey, Braised Turkey, Tur- 


508 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE. 


key Souffle, Boiled Turkey, Roast Chicken, Broiled Chicken, 
Chicken Fricassee, Boiled Chicken, and Smothered Chicken. Very 
little should be eaten, and the suggestions of Chapter Thirteen 
in the book of Inside Membership should be observed. 

Some game may be allowed in place of other meat, as follows: 

Wild Turkey, Partridge, Pheasant, Quail, Crouse, Prairie Fowl, 
Woodcock, Snipe, Plover, Rail, Reed Birds, Pigeon, Wild Pigeon 
and Squab. They may be cooked in the various ways suggested 
for the sensible cooking of fowl. 

All Lobsters, Crabs, Clams, Oysters, except when noted. Terrapin, 
and similar food should be avoided, as they are poisonous to hu¬ 
manity; sometimes their action being slow and at other times 
suddenly fatal. 

Sauces should not be rich, and gravies must be simple and close 
to the native juice of the meat, or else not eaten at all. 

Potatoes that may go with the noon meal are: 

Baked, boiled, browned, roasted, hashed, creamed, fried with¬ 
out browning to crisp, mashed and stewed. This list allows a 
change of kind each day, and some to spare. 

The vegetables may be selected from the lists and descriptions 
furnished in the book of Inside Membership, Chapter Fourteen. 
There is so much of value in that chapter that its suggestions 
should be fixed in the memory. 

In the winter time when the green vegetables are scarce, and the 
body needs warmer food, the following may be made up to be 
served as cold weather vegetables: 

Boiled rice, eaten with butter; macaroni; egg rice; boiled maca¬ 
roni, eaten with butter; scalloped macaroni; baked macaroni; 
spaghetti, eaten with butter; boiled chestnuts; mashed chestnuts; 
squash, dressed with cream and butter; hulled corn; hominy, eaten 
with butter; and beans or peas, stewed, strained, and served with 
butter. 

Ice-creams are not allowed in the High Regime, owing to the 
fact that the presence of sugar and milk or cream causes a very 
strong fermentation, which is a source of danger to a weak stomach. 
Experiments made in hundreds of cases have established this fact. 

But sherbets, water ices and similar dainties are allowable. 
They should be made of the real fruit in season, and of the home¬ 
made fruit juices in other portions of the year. Do not buy fruit 
juices or drink them at soda fountains, as they are almost invaria- 



INSOMNIA. 


509 


bly made from chemicals, even where they are sworn to be straight 
fruit products. The United States Government has exposed this 
line of adulteration, as well as many others. Never buy any jams, 
canned goods, preserved fruits, etc., at any store, even where you 
can see them in the bottle, for where they are real they are held 
in chemical poisons that are injurious. Put them up at home. 

In the warm season salads made from olive oil dressings are very 
beneficial, and may be made from fifty or more different foods. 

No puddings and no pies, nothing made of cake, pie-crust, or 
any mixture of sweets and starches, sweets and eggs, sweets and 
milk or cream, or dried currants, citron, or anything that is dis¬ 
allowed in the previous chapters of this book, must be eaten at any 
meal. 

For dessert in winter, the nutritious fruits, such as the fig, the 
date, the raisin and the banana, are permitted to follow the noon 
meal. In the summer time, the banana and sherbets, water ices, 
and fruits in their seasons, may be employed as desserts for the 
noon meal; and some of those that began the morning meal, except 
the orange or lemon, may be repeated if desired, or fruits from 
their class may be used, as pears in the morning before breakfast, 
and apples at noon at the end of the dinner; or peaches at one time, 
and cherries, pears, plums, etc., at the other time. 

The foregoing noon meal is ample, full, varied, and full of all 
tempting things for the stomach of any person, well or sick. 

If you are troubled with any other complaint for which you are 
taking treatment, and if the diet conflicts with this, let the allow¬ 
able foods of both be used as a basis, omitting those that are for¬ 
bidden. 

Eat heartily at the breakfast, and sparingly at the noon meal. 
That is, come away from the table hungry; not very hungry, but 
feeling that you wish more to eat. This is the rule. Do not take 
more of the desserts than of the substantial parts of the dinner. 

EVENING MEAL IN ALL CASES OF INSOMNIA. 

Bread, as stated, for breakfast, may be taken with butter or in 
the form of toasts, and to such extent as it may be desired ; two 
average slices being sufficient. Bread and butter make the best 
combination, and there is too little of it eaten in this country. 
Plain bread, properly made and kept, will soon be relished very 
much. We have letters from many persons who did not at first 


510 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE. 

like the idea of eating so much bread and so little of other things; 
but now the verdict is that the liking has become very strong. “ I 
prefer bread and butter to cake or pie,” is a typical letter from a 
person who did not at first think it possible to give up pastry. 

Rice should always be eaten at the evening meal in some form. 
Eice is a light, easily digested and curative food. It may be 
taken with salt and a little milk, the patients being allowed to 
increase the quantity of milk to any extent they please. But rice 
and sugar must be avoided. The taste for rice and milk will grow 
rapidly, and sugar will then be regarded as too sickening, as it 
would be to-day if the stomach were not out of order. 

Mealy potatoes baked are also allowed, dressed with milk and 
salt. 

During the period of the year when it is not possible to get 
potatoes that are old enough to be cooked mealy, rice and butter at 
noon, rice and milk at breakfast and the same at supper, may be 
taken in place of the potatoes and as a substitute. Both are starchy 
foods, and both are easy to digest. 

The difficulty, if any, with rice, comes from the gluey mass which 
it is apt to form in the stomach, but butter keeps the cells from ad¬ 
hering, and helps the digestibility. Milk does the same. The 
habit of eating rice with some other food, as a little of bread, and a 
little of rice, and so on alternating, will help the digestion. Under 
such circumstances it is the best of foods as far as digestibility is 
concerned. Steaming the rice helps to swell the cells. 

Eaisins and rice, on which butter or milk is served, make a very 
nice evening dish. Cook the raisins as well as the rice. 

Eice with the juice of beefsteak, and well salted, is very valuable, 
and should be kept as an article of diet for a lifetime. It is used in 
cases of diarrhoea., and in convalesence from typhoid, and other 
fevers. 

Eice and prunes, rice and pears, rice and peaches, rice and 
bananas, and many other forms of rice, will be found both appetiz¬ 
ing and beneficial. These are all typical evening dishes, but may be 
taken on hot days at any meal. 

The more rice you eat at the evening meal, the better will you 
sleep at night. 

Whole tapioca, not pearl, may be taken, and also may sago and 
occasionally custards and custard puddings; but no pie-crust, and 
no cake, nor any product in which baking-powder is used. 


INSOMNIA. 


511 


Cornstarch, farina, sea moss, blanc manges and baked apples with 
cream are excellent articles with which to tempt the appetite at the 
evening meal. 

Potatoes may be omitted at this third meal if there is no appetite 
for them. 

From all the foods named as suited for the evening meal, you 
may select such as you wish, and omit the others. 

BUT YOU CANNOT OMIT THE RICE. 

The rice must now be depended on in proportion as you find the 
cure delayed. The evening meal must gradually curtail all other 
articles from those we have just named, omitting one at a time, 
until the malady is completely conquered, or until you come down to 
nothing but rice. It will not happen in one case in ten thousand 
that the rice diet will have to be used; and our experience shows that 
the disease has always yielded long before this single article of food 
had to be used alone -at supper. Sudden shifting of the habits of 
eating is not advisable; and it is for this reason that we advise a 
slow gradation. If rice is to be eaten, let it be taken in the form de¬ 
scribed under the treatment for Faulty Nerves, where all the al¬ 
lowable supper dishes of rice are fully described and the manner of 
cooking described. 


We now come to another branch of the subject, which we will pre¬ 
sent as the 

HABITS OF LIFE TO BE ADOPTED IN ALL CASES OF 
INSOMNIA. 

We come now to the treatment of the mind in the cure of in¬ 
somnia. While it is true that the rice diet or the full diet as 
hereinbefore prescribed by us, will take away from the brain all 
power of hard work at night, especially after nine or ten o’clock, 
which is the proper time for going to bed if one is ill, such efforts 
should be assisted in other ways, so as to avoid abruptness of 
change. The very first thing to do is to put the big end of the 
wedge at the top of the day, and let the little end come down 
through the evening. This rule is the rule of life and health. It 
now is applied to the hours of arising and retiring. The later you 



612 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE. 


retire the more difficult you will find it to get natural sleep. At 
midnight the sun passes the setting direction and starts toward his 
rising. Vitalities are then preparing to awaken, although the first 
impulses of their return are not appreciable until after three o’clock. 
Slumber is most natural when it begins as many hours on the other 
side of midnight, namely, at nine o’clock. 

To induce natural sleep the hour of arising for the patient 
should be not later than six o’clock in the morning. The question 
might arise, is it not better to permit sleep at any time rather than 
awaken the patient at six o’clock ? The answer is, that it is better 
to allow sleep, of course; but if he is awake at any time between 
five and six fin the morning, he should at once arise and go to work 
in the manner to be described hereinafter. Then, if there is a desire 
for sleep at any time after eleven o’clock in the forenoon, let it be 
indulged, as it will soon establish the “ sleep habit.” Again in the 
afternoon, if the feeling comes on, indulge it always. Then lie 
down at nine o’clock every evening, whether sleepy or not. Close 
the eyes. Remain in one position as long as possible. 

It is not generally known that lying down with‘the eyes closed 
and the eyeballs rolled slightly upward, as they do in genuine sleep, 
is equal to seventy per cent, of real slumber as long as the body does 
not move a muscle, and the parts are relaxed. Yet this is a fact. 
A most refreshing rest is thus obtainable. Relaxing is of the great¬ 
est importance. A great physician discovered it for himself and 
could fall into the soundest slumber in three seconds. To relax 
it is necessary to lie as if every part of the body were as free from 
solidity as a jelly-fish. Raise the hand, and let it fall as though 
dead; then half the arm, then the whole arm, then the legs, and 
finally the head. Soon every nerve will feel the sympathetic har¬ 
mony of slumber; the vital currents will be called into their centers, 
and a refreshing repose will follow, even if sleep is not secured at 
first. 

If this plan is pursued every night at nine o’clock during the 
first three weeks, the genuine “ sleep habit ” will follow, unless you 
arise later than six o’clock in the morning or take too long a nap in 
the day. Remember that rest with the eyes closed, the eyeballs 
partly rolled up, and the body relaxed, is equal to seventy per cent, 
of actual slumber, as long as the body is still. To induce sleep at 
night the point of the wedge must taper away to nothingness; that 
is, all the heavy activities should occupy the first half of the day 


INSOMNIA. 


513 


and die away gradually into the first hours of the night. We have 
spoken of the value of work, and will refer to exercise as a better 
substitute if it is balanced. For this malady such practice should 
occur as far away from the night as possible; that is, early in the 
morning, so as to avoid muscular or nervous excitement just before 
evening draws on. 

The earlier you rise in the morning the sooner you will conquer 
insomnia. But in any event you must not be up later than six, and 
your breakfast must not be eaten later than half-past six. This 
will make it very inconvenient for you and for your family; but 
your loss of sleep will come to such a crisis that a greater degree of 
inconvenience will ensue for all concerned. Not long ago a man 
asked his wife to have his breakfast for him at half-past six, so that 
he might try this cure. She replied that she did not propose to 
make a fool of herself. Two nights later the crack of a pistol was 
heard in the bathroom; and the woman is a widow. If the wife is 
not to be a helpmeet, in the name of all that is sacred what is she to 
be? 

Self-denial is not an idle virtue. 

It may be making a fool of a person to arouse the family at six 
in the morning, but it is the plan of nature, not ours; it is the decree 
of God, not man; for He who made the flowers to awaken on the im¬ 
pulses of the first light of day had the good of man in mind in the 
same law. The exact rules that help plants and flowers to grow 
apply equally to the life of the human body. If you give your roses 
and carnations, or any kind of plant life, the night for growth and 
for receiving vitality from nature, and close them up when the sun 
is climbing the morning sky, they will all fade, droop and become 
sickly. They will not be able to sleep. The first vitality of the day 
is the best for your body. Proof of this fact has been secured in 
over fifty thousand instances where men and women and even chil¬ 
dren have been saved by attuning their functions to the rule of 
nature. 

After breakfast get some exercise in the outdoor air; and do this 
after each meal, except the last, which is the retiring lunch. 

Get all the sunlight and all the outdoor air you can during the 
day. Avoid sitting as much as possible. Overcome all sedentary 
habits. Exercise, walk, work with your body at least a total of eight 
hours in the twenty-four until you are cured. These are not sugges¬ 
tions ; thev are imperative rules. 

" 33 


514 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE. 


It is a good rule not to work or exercise too vigorously before a 
meal, so as to take too much of the nervous vitality away from the 
digestive organs. The activity that will give an appetite may, if 
made excessive, destroy it. But after the meal has been eaten the 
work or exercise may be increased considerably if there are brief 
periods of rest during its continuance. The object is to get weary 
after a meal without becoming exhausted. The practice should be 
kept up all through the forenoon at intervals. The best way is to 
rest a half hour after breakfast, then practice hard for a half hour, 
allowing one-minute periods of cessation every five minutes; then 
idle away the time or read or attend to the duties of the day for 
the next thirty minutes; then exercise for thirty minutes, and so 
continue until the hour for the noon meal. 

The afternoon should be spent in outdoor life of some kind, where 
but little labor is required, as in weeding flowers, trimming shrubs, 
gardening, walking, studying nature, or other means of throwing 
off the cares and common routine of life. Then nights should have 
nothing in prospect. All we are saying and have said applies to in¬ 
valids suffering from insomnia. Do not suppose that we are pre¬ 
scribing for those who are well. Time should run along heavily. 
There should be nothing going on in the evening until regular sleep 
can be assured. We are after a quick and permanent cure, and must 
get it by the best means at hand. Convenience cannot be considered 
when the mind itself is at stake. Dull hours, nothing to amuse or 
entertain, unless it is pure comedy, should be the only prospect 
ahead. 

It is often claimed that there must be something to occupy the 
mind, or else it will go to thinking of the cares and anxieties of 
business or other matters. This may be true for a day or two; but 
the animal system of humanity takes on new habits easily, and the 
practice of sitting out of doors evenings, or lounging about, with 
nothing to do, will quickly establish a new habit. It is even possi¬ 
ble, by lying down at nine o’clock every night, closing the eyes, roll¬ 
ing the eyeballs upward, as is done in sleep, remaining motionless 
and completely relaxing the body, to start the habit of falling asleep 
exactly at nine o’clock after a few evenings of trial, providing the 
diet is a natural one. No treatment can bring on sleep if a heavy 
meal is eaten in the place of supper, except in cases where insomnia 
is not a disease. Some persons can eat to gluttony, and yet sleep 
like a horse. They are not finely strung in the nervous system. 


INSOMNIA. 


515 


The quick brain, the sensitive temperament, cannot endure such 
monstrosity of abuse without paying the penalty. 

Social habits should be discontinued if sleep is interfered with by 
them. Conversation, especially if interesting, taxes the mind, the 
nerves and the vitality. The worst cases of nervous disorder are 
associated with this one habit. Few persons realize that a sensitive 
brain becomes very active while indulging in a lively discussion, and 
is left weak after it. In a number of cases of nervous prostration, 
where specialists had ordered complete quietude and the patients 
had declared that they had obeyed implicitly, it appeared that they 
got worse all the time, and they were quick to lose faith in their 
medical advisers; but the doctors knew they were right and took 
occasion to ascertain wherein the patients had unknowingly falsified. 
They learned that, as a part of the “ quietude,” the habit of convers¬ 
ing rather excitedly for three hours at a stretch had been innocently 
included. Tests were made of the pulse before and after such a con¬ 
versation, and proof was furnished that the heart was weaker, the 
pulse fluttering and irregular as compared with a real rest of three 
hours. Nervous prostration, like insomnia, is a relative of insanity; 
and the tests that apply to mental dethronement are useful in the 
other maladies.' One of these is based upon the appearance of the 
pupils of the eyes. The patient who is suffering from insomnia 
shows very clearly, in this test, the effect of animated conversations. 
For such reason the brain should be kept as calm as possible, avoid¬ 
ing talking to others or being talked to. 

In a few days, sometimes in four or five, the malady disappears. 
The dreaded insomnia is gone. Its leave-taking is often sudden. 
We can do nothing better than to quote from a very recent patient, 
who says: “ I realized at the outset that I had a desperate case, one 
that was hopeless from the medical standpoint. I resolved to follow 
Ealston advice, as I had nothing to lose and my life to gain. I de¬ 
termined to follow every bit of your advice, no matter how trivial. 
I wanted to be cured. I neglected nothing. I was too far gone to 
think of convenience or any personal sacrifice. I could give up 
everything, and I did. The diet first gave me hope. I ate more 
rice at supper (which was my dinner until then) than you re¬ 
quested. The habit of thinking hard and long on any subject that 
fastened itself on my mind began to dissolve after two days. I 
could feel it slipping away from me. The sleep on the night of 
that day was a drowsy, broken, dreamy rest that surely must have 


516 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE. 


been a fight between nature trying to step in and bad habits hesitat¬ 
ing to go out. It was delicious. The next night nature was 
stronger, and the night following I slept souldly, the first happy 
night of many weary months.” This is a well-presented report of 
a permanent cure. In another case the patient said: “ The diet did 
more for me than anything else. In four nights I was able to sleep 
as sound as a log.” A business man wrote, in asking advice: “ I 
have no faith in any treatment, yours or any other. You may as 
well know that I expect my case is hopeless.” The same man wrote 
a month later: “ I got sleep on the third night, more on the fourth, 
and was about cured on the fifth. Then I considered myself well; 
but two weeks afterward I worked hard all day and most of the 
night on my book accounts, and the following night I could not 
sleep a wink. I again tried your treatment, and got sleep in one 
night. I find it does not pay to abuse the health, but I am able to do 
so, and cure myself with your method.” Yes, now; but there may 
come a day when wanton defiance of nature’s plan will bring a quick 
penalty. Still it is almost always true that where a person lives in 
harmony wdth nature’s laws most of the time, he may take chances 
occasionally. Scars heal themselves in healthy bodies. 

We now come to the fifth meal, which is perhaps the most im¬ 
portant of all. It is more a part of the sj^stem of habits than of 
diet, for its effect is like that of medicine rather than of food. We 

THE RETIRING MEAL. 

It is to consist of a bowl of broth, thin soup, or any meat-fluid 
that can be prepared, except that all canned or store soups and ex¬ 
tracts must be avoided, as they analyze like urine and are hurtful. 
Have the broth made at home. Get marrow bones, or mutton, or 
chicken, and make a palatable but not heavy soup; thin in all re¬ 
spects except that it must have some good value. In it let rice be 
well cooked. Butter may be added, if the soup is too thin. The rice 
must not only be well cooked but must be free from a gummy condi¬ 
tion, and there must be plenty of it; say, one-fifth in bulk of the rice. 
A cup and a half of this must be taken AFTER ycu have got in bed, 
and are settled for the night. 

It must be taken every night. 

There is no good substitute for it. 

The nearest is a glass of hot milk, but there must be nothing in 
the milk. Next best is a lunch of seven malted milk tablets, all 


INSOMNIA. 


517 


taken after you are in bed. The soup or broth is so much to be pre¬ 
ferred that you should make every effort to get it. Never eat 
crackers, biscuit, bread or anything else in the broth of soup. 

WHERE THE TEMPERAMENT IS THE CAUSE OF 
INSOMNIA. 

If you are not able to control the malady with the foregoing 
methods, your temperament is undoubtedly at fault. The plan of 
procedure is now to be somewhat varied. But in the first place you 
must have given the foregoing details a full and faithful trial for at 
least three weeks; although there is not the slightest harm in trying 
what is now to be given. The whole plan is as follows: 

T. Adhere to every detail of the foregoing pages of this treat¬ 
ment. 

2. Cultivate the art of devitalizing the muscles of the body. This 
requires that you learn how to make the body or any of its parts 
take weak or lifeless positions. First begin with the head; allow the 
neck to relax so that the head falls forward as in nodding. Do this 
a hundred time a day in practice. Then raise the arms and imagine 
that they have suddenly gone to sleep; make them fall soft and 
flabby as if no life remained in them. Do this a hundred times a 
day. Then lift one leg and let it fall in the same lifeless way; then 
the other; and repeat a hundred times a day. You are now ready to 
try this method while lying down. Observation shows that all per¬ 
sons who suffer from insomnia are in the habit of lying in a forced 
or strained and tensed position. Let the lifeless condition be given 
the whole frame. It is easily acquired. 

3. Cultivate the art of indefiniteness. Insomnia sets everything 
up in the mind in a sharp and awfully definite shape. This must 
must be reversed, and the best of all methods is to study the constel¬ 
lations of the sky; for there is nothing that can compare with them 
in this principle of indefiniteness. Get any book that shows these 
constellations and see if you can pick out at least one every two 
nights or three a week. Go out upon some piazza where you are en¬ 
tirely surrounded by the night air; it will do you good. Take up the 
study of the southern heavens, which is the scene before which the 
whole panorama of the year passes in steady review and there secure 
as many of these star pictures as you can make out in the long sweep 
from the east to the west. It will bother you for a while. In cold 
weather, wrap up warm, and sit out from seven till nine each even- 


518 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-FIVE- 

ing; by which time you will either have made out a constellation or 
else fallen almost asleep. Now get in the house and to bed as soon 
as you can. See no one except the person who is to bring you the 
broth. Allow no information to be brought to you, and do not give 
any orders. We tested this plan in a large number of cases and the 
results were like miracles in producing sound sleep; sleep that lasted 
till morning. The night air is conducive to sleep. Stay out in it 
for two hours every night, and get right to bed. as soon as you go in 
the house. Of course, avoid dampness and bad weather. High 
piazzas, or platforms erected for the time being, will serve the pur¬ 
pose. 

4. Plot-making is the final step for the cure of a bad state of 
mind that is due to the temperament. This idea has served in hold¬ 
ing the brain off from subjects that are bound to spring up against 
the will. The plot should be one and the same every night; it 
should be reviewed from the beginning each night. Put yourself in 
the plot as the central figure. Imagine yourself at a time of life 
when you are in demand because of qualities that attract; and on 
this basis build a story of an acquaintance with one who holds you in 
exalted esteem; and let the plot develop in such a way that you win 
fame, fortune, happiness, and all else that earth affords. Take all 
the liberty you wish with the facts or probabilities, and let every 
movement of the story be favorable to your triumph. This idea is 
somewhat recent; but for three years we have had it put to the test 
and with the most marvellous success. The mind that is full of rush 
and turmoil from the activities of a busy day will fall to sleep in 
about two minutes by taking up the same plot and going over all the’ 
details. It will never come to a climax. Then the trend of the 
thoughts will bring peace and a happy contentment to the brain. 

In using this treatment, be sure to read every word again and 
again. One reading is not sufficient. A dozen readings will, we 
guarantee, give you new ideas and new light, new information each 
time. The purpose of this treatment is to effect a cure. It will do 
so if you adopt it fully and persistently. It is worth your while to 
try. It may mean health and even prolonged life to you. Do not 
pass by any detail slightingly. 

The best physicians the world over have abandoned the use of 
medicines in attempting to cure insomnia. They are looking to 
nature and natural methods as the only source of hope. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 36 


* Influenza 


INCLUDING 

HAY FEVER, HAY ASTHMA, JUNE COLD, ROSE COLD, 
RAGWEED FEVER AND AUTUMNAL CATARRH. 


This monograph 

DOES NOT INCLUDE COLDS AND LA GRIPPE, 

as they will be found fully discussed in the third Special Treat¬ 
ment, where much more space is devoted to them. 


This malady, which differs with the various conditions under 
which it arises, is now becoming understood, although there is 
much yet to be discovered in both its origin and treatment. While 
it has been charged to pollen, flower dust, hay dust and other things, 
the main fact now known as certain is that it has its origin in a 
weakened nervous system, and is distinctly a nervous disease. 

Its basis, therefore, is nervous weakness. This leaves the sensitive 
erectile tissue within the nose a prey to attacks from without, such 
as come from the pollen or dust of many flowers and grasses. This 

(519) 



520 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-SIX. 


flower dust has no effect upon persons who are not subject to the 
disease. The air contains a great variety of pollen during the 
months of June, July and August. This dust floats about in an in¬ 
visible form, but may be collected on a piece of dampened glass and 
examined under a miscroscope. 

On sunny days the pollen will rise with the hot currents of air 
that steam upward from the earth; and in their action they are 
favored by dampness. Thus when the sun is shining the danger of 
attack is increased. A heavy rain drives the pollen out of the air, 
and the patient finds relief for a day or more. 

The season of attack is generally the same for the same person. 
One starts early in June, another early in August; and each year 
will, as a rule, bring a recurrence. The malady rarely ever appears 
before the first of June; but it may come as late as September. The 
frost drives it away; or the end of the particular season may do so, 
as when the June cold disappears with the departure of June pollen 
about the first to the middle of July. 

Men are more subject to hay fever proper than women; while the 
latter are more subject to June cold. It attacks persons who are in¬ 
doors much, such as professional people and those of sedentary 
habits, as well as those who tax the brain a great deal; although it 
is not necessary evidence of mental capacity. It is not possible to 
have the disease unless the locality favors it, and high places, moun¬ 
tains, and coast districts on which the winds from agricultural 
places do not blow, are free from it. It attacks the Anglo-Saxon 
race almost exclusively. England has twice the number of cases 
than any other country per capita. 

Each season’s attack begins by the itching of the erectile tissue 
within the nose, followed by continual sneezing, running of water 
and a depressing headache or dulness. From this beginning the in¬ 
flammation spreads to the eyes, and may reach downward to the 
throat. The eyelids then become sensitive and itch. They should 
not be rubbed, as this adds to their sensitiveness; nor should the 
irritation in the nose be met by rubbing or pressure. 

Natural Treatment.— Whatever may be the form of this 
malady, whether a June cold, autumnal catarrh, hay fever or what, 
the treatment is the same. That erectile tissue in the nose must 
be conquered. This can be done by keeping the vitality high 
and by outdoor life during the eleven months of freedom from 
the attack. During the latter, it is best to keep indoors and away 


INFLUENZA. 


521 


from the sun. After sunset each day the pollen will be inactive, 
as a rule, and advantage may be taken of the fact. But in the 
other eleven months of the year, outdoor life and sunshine in cold 
weather should be courted. This prepares the system for it and 
hardens the nerves against it. 

The close relation between the genital organs and the diseases of 
the eyes and nose is being studied by investigators at the present 
time. It is well known that, when there is sexual loss from any 
cause, or when there is a drainage on the lower organs, the eyes show 
it by hollow lines. Thus the sexual act is always followed by such 
hollows. But they attend great loss of vitality from those parts, re¬ 
gardless of the act referred to. Leucorrhoea, weakness, prolapsus 
and any falling away of the vitality of that part of the body, will 
be attended by weakness of the eyes and nose. 

In announcing this treatment in our book of Inside Membership 
we used the following language: “ We have not always been able to 
cure rose cold or hay fever, although our treatment has reduced 
their severity very much.” In other places we have referred to the 
fact that we are making new experiments all the time through our 
many regents and their aids, and we shall be pleased to report 
progress as soon as we have ascertained facts that are not now fully 
proved. 

In the effort to cure hay fever, rose cold and similar forms of in¬ 
fluenza, referring to those that affect the nose and eyes, we find that 
the first great step is to check all such weakness and losses as arise 
from the genital‘organs. If the man or woman is married, let there 
be a total cessation of all sexual indulgence during the weeks when 
the malady is present. Having given this advice a number of times 
in the past, and having had reports that great relief had resulted 
from this course of self-denial, we now ask our members who are 
afflicted with this trouble to assist us in getting further evidence on 
this subject in‘order that we may embody it in our future publica¬ 
tions. 

Influenza, in its more technical sense, applies to a general catarrh 
of the eyes, nose, throat, bronchial tubes and membrane surrounding 
the lungs; being accompanied by fever and acute symptoms. In 
one of its phases it branches off into what is now known as la grippe. 
But we believe that malady to be due to germs that are peculiar to 
itself. We also believe that the form of catarrhal affection that is 
present in hay fever and similar troubles is due to a miscroscopic 


522 SPECIAL, TREATMENT No. THIRTY-SIX. 

excitement of the membranes that are exposed to the heat of the 
sun, or hot atmosphere, or pollen, at a time when the vitality is low; 
but that germs are not necessarily indicated. The catarrhal flow is 
thin and watery. 

Between hay fever and its kin on the one hand and la grippe and 
colds on the other hand is the serious affection which is known as 
common influenza. 

This shows three or even four classes of attacks that are similar 
or related; counting common colds as the mildest. 

But influenza of the general type is due to microbes, except that 
they are not the same as those that cause la grippe. In influenza 
proper they attack the air passages and extend more deeply than in 
either colds, la grippe or hay fever and its kin. They are likely 
to develop what is known as catarrhal fever, or pulmonary affec¬ 
tion, or'bronchitis or even pneumonia. In the early stages the treat¬ 
ment is the same as that given for la grippe in this book; and in the 
more serious stages it is the same as that given for pneumonia. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 3*7 


irfipupe Blood * 


In this monograph we will include the treatment for loss of blood, 
deficiency of blood, weakness of the general body, paleness, chlorosis, 
and all disorders that are akin to deficiency of nutrition, or blood- 
growth. 

Lack of blood not only means lack of life, growth and strength, 
but also that every organ and function of the body must get out of 
order and suffer, with only misery and death ahead. There may be 
too little bulk of blood; the blood may be too thin; the albumen may 
be lost or wasted; or, what is more common, the red corpuscles may 
be lacking. Too many males suffer from this condition; but, we are 
sorry to say, a much greater percentage of women and girls are 
victims of the malady. And it is on the increase. It is far more 
common to-day than thirty years ago; and farther back in time it 
was confined chiefly to girls and those who languished within doors. 

While this condition appears in several forms having special 
names, they are all traceable to one general cause; although there 
may be a special aggravation of the system which leads to the dis¬ 
tinct phase of the malady. Then the lack of blood may itself be the 
general parent of scores of other disorders. We know that the 
stomach soon gives way if the blood is poor, and that local treat- 

( 523 ) 




524 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-SEVEN. 

ment is often useless as long as there is not blood enough to supply 
the organs of digestion with their needed vitality. In a few years 
the kidneys become poisoned; the heart droops until the circula¬ 
tion is too feeble to keep the body warm; the lungs become weak 
and flabby, so that a cold quickly develops pneumonia, consump¬ 
tion or some other fatal malady; and life is always uncertain. 
The skin, hair, teeth, eyes, ears, membranes, glands, bones, nerves 
and flesh show in a multitude of ways the sad results of a deficient 
blood supply, and hundreds of terms have come into use because of 
so many consequences of this one cause; which, itself, has a cause 
behind it. 

One of the first indications is paleness, but this is not always a 
certain sign. Thinness generally follows; yet a bloated condition, 
or that of excessive fat may accompany it instead. The skin may 
have a pure paleness, often translucent; or it may be of a dirty 
hue which must not be confounded with biliousness. In a majority 
of cases impure blood is attended by skin eruptions, especially on the 
face and neck, and sores with thin, bloody heads, often quite small; 
while, on the other hand, there are many persons that have rather 
smooth skins with no sores or blotches, although they have impure 
blood. 

To sum up the conditions that belong to this disease, we will say 
that it may be manifested in two general ways: 

1. Lack of sufficient blood. 

2. Lack of red corpuscles, or red material in the blood. 

A person weighing 100 pounds should have ten to twelve pounds 
of blood if the quantity is normal. One who weighs 140 pounds 
should have from twelve to fifteen pounds of blood, or even more. 
There is no certainty as to the proportion, and it varies considera¬ 
bly. But when the blood itself is not of good color, the trouble is 
more readily ascertained. The main fluid is colorless; its name is 
plasma; and it serves as a river in which little disks float to all 
parts of the body. The disks are of two kinds, white and red. 
The white are builders, being the material out of which the entire 
body is constructed. The red disks have been regarded as useful 
in many ways, chiefly in the maintenance of vitality; but, to lay 
aside technical terms, we will understand them better if we call 
them agents that serve to turn the food we eat into the white disks, 
and to carry these white disks into every part of the body and 
there to build the new as the old gives way. So numerous are the 


IMPtJRE BLOOD. 


525 


disks that twenty millions are formed with every breath we take, 
if we are in good health. 

As a rule when there is a lack of bulk or quantity of blood the 
fault is in the loss of the white disks, or albumen of which they 
are composed; and the flesh suffers because there is not enough 
material out of which to build it. But* when the albumen is abun¬ 
dant the red disks may be lacking and there is great paleness with¬ 
out much loss of flesh; and sometimes there is an accumulation of 
flesh but no color. The person is ghastly white and sometimes fat. 
In most cases the lack of red will cause a lack of albumen, because 
the former are not abundant enough to draw the latter from the 
food. This double condition is seen in girls from twelve to twenty, 
who do not know how to take care of the body. It is called 
chlorosis or green sickness, and is a form of anaemia that accom¬ 
panies the age of puberty where the simple principles of health 
have been neglected. Most girls are troubled with chlorosis; and 
they spend a lifetime in recovering from the disasters to health and 
happiness which follow this unnecessary malady. A few proposi¬ 
tions, stripped of their technical terms, may serve to give light to 
the subject, and, at the same time, guide you in the recovery of 
normal condnitions. 

1. The plasma is the blood without disks, and is charged with 
water and digested food. 

2. The white disks are food materials taken out of the plasma 
and made into albumen for the purpose of supplying growth and 
support to all parts of the body. 

3. Unless the white disks are very abundant and are quickly 
formed, the whole body will be weak, the organs will suffer, and ill 
health will follow. 

4. The white disks depend on the food taken into the stomach; 
and, when impure blood prevails, it is especially necessary that 
abundant food of the right kind should be taken at proper intervals; 
and that all improper food should be omitted. 

5. Without plenty of red disks the white disks will not form 
rapidly, for the red disks serve to take the food into the blood and 
to build it in the body; and life is sluggish and stagnant. 

6. The best food properly taken will be of little value without the 
aid of red disks. 

7. Red disks depend upon pure, fresh, vital, active air inhaled 
deeply into the lungs. Indeed, it is not possible to form them in 


526 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-SEVEN. 

any other way. Every physician knows that the chief object of 
breathing is to form red disks. The blood before and after a breath 
is quite different in color and condition. 

8. Fresh, pure air is food and nutrition of far greater value than 
that which is taken into the stomach, and yet of a different 
class. Wa>ter, also, is food. No person can live on water and air 
alone; nor on any other element alone. Water contains oxygen 
and hydrogen. Air contains o-xygen and nitrogen. The body is 
nearly nine-tenths oxygen, and nine-tenths of its daily food must 
be oxygen, which it- best gets from the. pure air. The flesh is very 
dependent upon nitrogen. Thus the air is the mpsj; valuable and 
important of all kinds of food; yet it is not enough, as there are 
certain fixed elements that cannot be omitted. 

9. Human beings were intended to live principally in the open 
air; but they live principally' in closed, stagnant, impure air. 
Many go. out in the air, but do not use it; they breathe no more out 
of doors than indoors; like swimmers in the water who do not 
drink the' water. We have seen anaemics walking on the broad 
piazza of a mountain hotel, not inhaling as much air as the ca¬ 
tarrhal victim o-f a close sitting room. We. have seen anaemics 
driving out in the fresh air, yet perfectly passive and helpless; sit¬ 
ting idly in the carriage, with pinched nostrils and compressed lips, 
unable to realize the value of the life about them which they take in 
the smallest doses possible. It is, therefore, important to under¬ 
stand that fresh air is not enough; that those who- walk and ride in 
it may not get the benefit of it into, one-fifth of the lungs; when, 
in order to.- get well, the whole lung capacity must be used, and a 
still greater capacity developed. 

10. When you are out of doors in the pure air, you neglect to 
feed four-fifths of the lungs you have developed; and you have not 
developed one-tenth of the passible capacity of your lungs. In 
other words, you feed one-fiftieth, or two per cent., and neglect the 
other forty-nine-fiftieths, or the. other ninety-eight per cent. No 
wonder you have impure blood. How much more serious is it if 
you do no’t get the pure air of outdoor life! 

11. One of the most erroneous and most dangerous of prac¬ 
tices is that of giving iron to persons suffering from impure blood. 
It is true that iron rust is red; but the red disks of the blood are 
made by oxygen and not by iron. Analysis shows that three big 
men in the best of health do not, all together, require an ounce of 


IMPURE BLOOD. 52? 

iron for their entire bodies; or that one large man contains less 
than a third of an ounce of iron. This is so small an amount as 
to be almost unrecognizable. Yet the doctors go on prescribing this 
mineral as though health depended upon it. There is no proof at 
any time that the use of iron as medicine, or taken in mineral 
waters, has ever cured anasmia. On the contrary it is a well-known 
fact that iron in either of the above forms will destroy the lungs 
and lead the way to consumption. 

12. Much ignorance prevails as to the source of iron in the 
system as well as to its necessity there. Take twelve strong men 
whose blood is red and full, and ask any doctor whence came the 
iron that is in their bodies. They will tell you that the iron came 
from the blood of meat, from medicines or from mineral waters of 
the chalybeate variety; and that it could not have come from any 
other source. But the men never drank chalybeate waters, and 
never took medicine. Then the iron must have come from the 
blood of meat, they say. What cattle, or sheep, or other animal 
from which man gets his meat, ever ate meat ? The ox grazing in 
the field is full of rich, red blood; but he never ate meat, never 
took medicine, and never drank chalybeate waters. All non-meat¬ 
eating animals have redder and more wholesome blood than those 
that live upon meat. A comparison will quickly settle this fact. 

WHAT TO DO 1 . 

Experiments have been made with certain results in two direc¬ 
tions. One class of experiments was made for the purpose of 
testing the pure air question. The diet included meat in or¬ 
dinary proportion, the other foods taken at the choice of the in¬ 
valids ; but they were made to live out in the open air as much as 
possible, and to use the air, to breathe it deeply and regard it as 
one of the essentials of daily food. In the case of a young woman 
who was suffering from chlorosis, and who seemed as pale as a 
corpse, the experiment was tried of an hour of life out of doors in 
the early morning, four more hours in the forenoon, four in the 
afternoon, one in the evening, and plenty of fresh air all night in 
an all-day ventilated bedroom; with the result that the functions 
of the body began to show a new life, the red disks formed rapidly, 
the color came to the face, the lips changed from a lake-purple to a 
beautiful red, and the life was saved. The manner of using the 
outdoor air will be explained later on in this treatment. 


528 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-SEVEN. 


In the second class of experiments the purpose in view was 
to ascertain if the eating of meat, which has always been supposed 
to be the only supply of iron, was essential to a complete cure. 
It was found that in the absence of meat greater care was neces¬ 
sary in selecting other food; which being done rendered recovery 
fully as easy and as speedy as in the case of meat-eating. The open 
air life was essential in all instances. Without it there was no 
diet, no care, no treatment, no medicine, no waters, nothing at all 
that could do the slightest good. 

The health of the body means chiefly the ability to keep all 
its parts in thorough repair through the supply of food properly 
selected, digested, assimilated and taken into every muscle, nerve, 
fiber* and tissue of the body. Food is the source of all life and 
all health. Medicines supply nothing. The body is merely the 
result of what food has been taken. This is the plan of nature. 
No treatment, bath, sanitarium, drug, apparatus, drink, regime 
or device whatever, can build the body. The latter is nothing 
but food. Gold watches are not made out of sawdust and lead. 
Flesh is not made out of medicines, ideas or faith. What you put 
in you will get. What you sow you will reap. And herein com¬ 
mon sense is the most potent form of intelligence. 

Air when fresh and pure is the best of all food, but will not do 
alone. Yet to an anaemic it is more necessary than any other food. 
The northwest wind is the most invigorating to a person east of 
the Pacific slope; west of. there the northeast wind is the best. 
Next comes the north winds; then all except the southeast, south¬ 
west and southern winds are next in value; but the last three are 
not to be disregarded, as they have their value. The first air of 
the morning is the best, if it is not malarious. 

To use air as food, the purpose is to drink oxygen in air form, 
and nitrogen as well. The two are needed by the body more than 
any other of the elements. Nothing that the stomach can con¬ 
tain is as valuable as a full drink of oxygen and nitrogen, taken in 
deep draughts of air. The blood is quickly made if there is other 
food to meet it; red disks are quickly formed; the skin shows im¬ 
mediate improvement; color comes into the face; the heart is more 
vital; digestion improves as if by magic; and everything seems 
buoyant and full of pleasure. 

The way to drink oxygen and nitrogen is to take a gentle 
breath easily, and let it flow out again as quietly as possible; no 


IMPURE BLOOD. 


529 


effort;, no hurry, no strain, no checking of respiration being neces¬ 
sary. Get out in the pure air and take a drink, then another, then 
a third, and so keep on. from time to time until you have secured a 
hundred or so; but do not make yourself weary. If you find that 
you are able to pull in a deeper breath than usual, you may know 
that this is a sign that you are to get well. Progress toward health 
is marked by progress in deepening the respirations; and, until the 
latter can be accomplished, you will have no hope, and you may 
up to that time consider yourself incurable. There is no other way 
known to science, to doctors, to medicines or to nature, of getting 
red disks in the blood; there never was any other way, and there 
never will be. We have seen three days of progressive breathing of 
fresh outdoor air change dark, purple lips to a healthful red; and 
this is a clear indication of what is going on in the blood-system 
within. 

When walking take a frequent drink of pure air, getting a 
very little deeper each time. It does no good to go suddenly to an 
unusual depth. Time is lost in that way. The deepening must 
be progressive, little by little. Persons who go to quick extremes 
never accomplish much, and always retard things. When riding 
or driving, do not sit idly; but take a drink of pure air now and 
then. Driving, or riding in a carriage, is but little better than 
idling indoors, unless you can employ the lungs in the way we have 
said. If you are seated on a piazza, or in the open air an 3 rwhere, 
take frequent drinks of pure air; always trying to deepen the respi¬ 
rations one by one. Never commence deeply. It is the gradual in¬ 
crease that accomplishes good. If you are exercising or playing out 
of doors, be sure to use the air. Most laborers use but little air; and 
they thus fail to get full value from their outdoor life; yet what 
air they get would do them worlds of good if they had proper food 
to eat. They keep their blood bad by an abominable diet. The 
foregoing methods of obtaining food in the form of oxygen and 
nitrogen from the air must be adopted regularly. It is true that 
the more hours a day you give to such drinking, the sooner you 
will note a change for the better, if other directions are followed. 

Do not rest much indoors, unless you are lying down. Keep 
quietly and gently active. Avoid all kinds of reading, hard think¬ 
ing and talking, as long as the vitality is very low, for such things 
keep you weak. Conversation, if earnest and rapid, will make you 
very nervous and tired. It takes much strength to talk to others; 

34 


530 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-SEVEN. 

and very little air gets into the lungs. Do not sit up late at night. 
Do not practice excesses. Any excess, any loss of power, any 
weariness must be avoided. You need every ounce of blood you 
can get. Give up all social duties until your malady has been con¬ 
quered. Get an hour’s sleep in the early afternoon if possible; or 
else a few minutes’ rest right after the noon meal. Do not go 
to bed later than ten at night. When health is fully restored you 
can then abuse it, but not now. Death is too close. 

In addition to what has been said thus far in this treatment you 
must live closely up to high regime as described in the book of In¬ 
side Membership which you possess. The diet there is exactly what 
you need for impure blood. Read and re-read that regime several 
times, as it contains so many facts that are helpful to you that you 
must become familiar with all of them. 

If some daughter in your family is falling into this condition 
and is going into a decline, watch her. She has habits of which you 
are not aware. She is deceiving herself and you at the same time. 
She comes to the table with no appetite and you pity her; that is 
right; but her lack of appetite is due to that box of candy she keeps 
in her room, or to that piece of cake at which she nibbles, or to 
pickles and other things that are eaten without your knowledge. 
We have cited such cases in our book of Inside Membership, es¬ 
pecially the candy habit. Since writing that book we have received 
many letters of thanks from parents for calling their attention to 
this matter; and we will quote from one of them, as they all bear 
the same train of thought: “You have opened my eyes. My 
daughter has been coming to the evening meal with no appetite and 
with a dull headache and yellow face. We had planned to send her 
to some sanitorium where she might recover, but the cost, twenty- 
five dollars a day, is almost more than we could easily afford. At 
the suggestion made in your book, we watched her and found that 
she was in the habit of buying candy on the quiet and eating it 
afternoons. We stopped this habit, and her appetite came back, and 
she has no more trouble now. Yet if I had not read the book we 
should have lost her, the way she was failing.” 

Millions of girls and women are failing in the same way and from 
the same cause—the abuse of the stomach. What right have they to 
exhaust the purses of those who work hard to support them, when 
they are solely to blame for their ill health ? 

These matters are carefully described in high regime. 


4't-tf m Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1004, by Ralston Company 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special ^Treatment 

NUMBER 38 



In dealing with the question of the loss of appetite we must con¬ 
sider the person as having a strong stomach but an inability to take 
or relish food. This condition is very frequently met with, and in¬ 
dicates a wrong regime or a faulty selection of foods. By regime is 
meant the habits of life with reference to eating, sleeping, exercising 
and the performance of duties. By the selection of foods is meant 
the choice of those that are proper or improper out of the many 
at one’s disposal. 

If the stomach is weak or diseased, this treatment is not the one 
that should have been selected; of which ample notice was given in 
advance. If the stomach is not weak or diseased there is nothing 
easier of cure than loss of appetite. It requires three things. 

1. A knowledge of what foods to avoid and what to use. 

2. A knowledge of what habits to avoid and what to adopt. 

3. A willingness to apply such knowledge in the effort to effect a 
cure. 

In the first place let us see what should and what should not enter 
the stomach. The idea of taking medicines to tone up the stomach 
is wrong. What can any drug or any chemical do? Doctors try 
stimulants in the hope that the stomach may be excited to larger 
use; but it is the larger use that they seek to obtain. Over three 

(531) 



532 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. T H I R i* Y-E I G HIT . 

hundred physicians, many of them specialists in weak stomach 
and indigestion, were asked what good could be expected from 
medicines, and all replied that nothing could be gained, unless it 
was to urge the stomach on to do more work. This, then, is 
undoubtedly the key, and the only key, to a cure of this malady. 
Use increases the vigor, increases the size, the quality, the whole 
value of the organ of digestion; and we say positively that there 
is no other treatment known or that can be invented that will 
take the place of this one law. But the use must be right, adapted 
to conditions, and thoroughly judicious. Medicines may stimulate, 
but they do so at the cost of the stomach, and generally at the ex¬ 
pense of the blood itself. 

WHAT TO AVOID. 

Foods Fobidden in Every Case. —All seasoning, except salt 
and butter. The latter must not be used in melted form, but 
must be spread cold and worked well in the food. Avoid all pep¬ 
per, vinegar, oil, mustard, spices of every kind, especially nutmeg, 
cinnamon, allspice, and every known condiment. Avoid all bot¬ 
tled sauces, all dressings, all ketchup, all bottled goods, all hot 
stuff, all pickled goods, bitters, wines, liquors, all extract of malt, 
and everything designed to create a false relish or appetite; es¬ 
pecially pepsin, peptonized goods, stomach settlers, headache drinks, 
drops, pills, powders, soda, syrups, medicines, aids to digestion, 
and the thousand patented ideas of the day. Nature got along 
very nicely before these things were invented; and then there 
was no doctor, no drug store, no canned goods, no bottled goods, 
no package goods, and no sickness. God gave the grains, fruits, 
vegetables, fire and water, and the means of making utensils; 
and perfect health is locked up in a close partnership with these 
agencies of the Creator’s own design. 

The following foods are also forbidden in every case under 
this treatment: Soups, gravies and sauces of all kinds, except the 
plain, strong soups we have already suggested. All bread, pastry, 
cakes, doughnuts, muffins, biscuits, rolls, and freshly made eatables 
of every kind, except those already allowed or hereafter given. 
All sweets, tarts, jam, gelatine, confectionery, candy and sugar, 
except as already allowed. All raw vegetables, such as cucumbers, 
cold-slaw, pickles, celery, radishes and the like. Sweet potatoes, 
jams, green corn, eggplant, tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, Brus- 


LOSS OF APPETITE. 


533 


sels sprouts, turnips, carrots, parsnips, and the like, except the fine¬ 
grained kinds when tender and cooked for a long time and then 
strained to get all fibers out. They are best in the form of soup 
we have described. Cured meats of every kind, including those 
deviled, smoked, dried, salted or preserved, whether fish, pork or 
other kind of meat. Crabs, shrimps, herring, lobster, salmon and 
terrapin, whether fresh or prepared. All fried foods of every kind; 
and all grease. Veal, except of good age, and then in broth; goose, 
duck, rabbit and all wild fowl. Tea, coffee, wine, beer, mineral 
water, malt extract, and all drinks not hereinafter given. 

ALLOWABLE EOODS. 

Except where strictly forbidden in the foregoing lists, all foods 
and drinks that are permitted in high regime in your book of Inside 
Membership may be taken. 

HABITS. 

All the habits of life must conform for a short time to the plan 
that has been found best for restoring the appetite. The first di¬ 
rection is to reverse the use of the day. By use is meant eating, 
reading, talking, riding, listening, working, studying, and any¬ 
thing that taxes the muscles, the nerves, the thought or the at¬ 
tention. These, or such of these as you may indulge in, must be 
made top-heavy in the first half of the day, and die away to nothing¬ 
ness by evening. The plan of procedure is simple and will be stated 
so that every person may understand and adopt it with no real 
inconvenience. We do not propose to present any rule of conduct 
that is not capable of being undertaken immediately by every per¬ 
son of sensible judgment. Some persons eat a small breakfast, an 
average meal at noon, which they call lunch, and a fearfully heavy 
meal late in the day or early in the evening, which they call dinner. 
Others eat a fair breakfast, a thin lunch, and a big dinner. Nat¬ 
urally, a heavy evening meal will destroy some of the appetite for 
the next morning’s breakfast. It also does injury to the health 
every minute of the long hours of the night. Muscle and nerve¬ 
feeding dishes are excellent at morning when the enginery of the 
body is to be prepared for its daily task; but the same strong foods 
taken before a night of coveted rest answer the same purpose that 
coaling and firing the locomotive would after the run is over, The 


534 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY EIGHT. 

muscles and nerves are being driven all night by these same strong 
foods, and the result is that the refuse is clogging the system, while 
the sleeping hours are robbed of their healthful rest. The body 
arises in the morning wearied, tired, nervous, listless in every func¬ 
tion, and almost loathing all food. 

The material that clogs the system from the habit of eating a 
heavy meal at the supper hour is in the way. It stops all activity of 
the liver, it chokes the veins, it depresses the stomach, and it takes 
away all relish. Not only in the bowels is it in the way, but the 
circulation of the blood is directly tainted by the bowels. A bad 
taste comes to the mouth from this process. It is sure to destroy the 
appetite. Some persons with sound teeth often have bad breath, 
and this is the explanation of that trouble. 

The habits must be reversed. Have the morning meal the 
heaviest, and that of the evening the lightest. There are many 
physicians who claim to produce a cure of sleeplessness by nothing 
but the prescription of a proper diet. “ Let the diet be right, and 
the logical result is sound sleep,” says one of them. Yet, while 
this is true in theory, the activities of the day should conform to 
the diet. Physical work ond outdoor life demand as a basis that 
there should be a good breakfast, and the latter is not possible 
after a big dinner of the night before; for a heavy evening meal 
clogs the system, stagnates the liver, exhausts the nervous strength, 
lowers the tone of the digestive organs, and renders the being unfit 
to demand or to receive a proper meal the next morning. 

IN EXTKEME CASES. 

To create an appetite for breakfast, omit the evening meal; eat 
nothing after noon time; and when a good morning appetite has 
been established, do not rob yourself of it by going back to the same 
errors; but resume the other meals under the plan of high regime. 

Outdoor life is of the highest value; but it must be a life that lives 
in and uses the air; not one that is part of the light and little 
of the atmosphere. There are three prominent methods of respira¬ 
tion, that of the chest, that of the diaphragm, and that of the ab¬ 
dominal action. The last has been called by the name of the action 
employed. In the art of voice training it is not the best; and is 
useful there only as a means of inviting pliability and flexibility 
of the muscles involved in the most artistic methods of respiration. 


LOSS OF APPETITE- 


535 


But in seeking to give health to all organic life within the body, 
no surer, quicker and more permanent means could, be employed 
than that of abdominal breathing. 

It is acquired best by lying down after a meal and taking the 
easiest breath possible, whether long or short, allowing the stomach 
to rise as you inhale. Then press the hands upon the abdomen and 
lower it as you breathe out. After a while you should he able to dis¬ 
tend or stretch the abdomen on every inhalation, and depress or con¬ 
tract it on every exhalation. When this can be done, you will find 
that you are reversing the ordinary habits of breathing, for there is 
no doubt that you contract the chest on the outgoing breath. This 
you can prove by saying “ Far ” in a full whisper, emptying the 
lungs instantly. Watch any other person do the same, before call¬ 
ing attention to abdominal contraction. 

The next step is to learn to contract the abdomen on each exhala¬ 
tion and expand it on each inhalation while standing; then while 
walking; and the final step is to learn to make the action each 
way very full and complete. This means chiefly to establish as 
much range or extent of movement of the abdominal wall as you 
can between the contraction while breathing out and the expansion 
while breathing in. This is very important. On the first day or 
two of the trials there should not be much out of the ordinary, if the 
effect is to make you dizzy, as is quite usual. Dizziness means that 
your lungs are weak and of very limited use, and the early exercise 
taxes the circulation of the blood and brings a faint pressure to 
bear upon the brain. Day by day all these signs will disappear 
as the lungs grow active. Then must come the grand struggle to 
bring all the organic life of the body into splendid health; and this 
part of the battle is won when you can take a very long, deep, silent 
breath and stretch the abdomen, and follow it by a long outgoing 
exhalation while contracting the abdomen. The difference between 
the two positions establishes range, and the longer the range the 
better the health of the stomach. Keep the clothing loose. If the 
muscles are stiff, it will take from three to seven days to start ab¬ 
dominal breathing. 

Kow let us apply this excellent treatment to the stomach. Hav¬ 
ing made up your mind to follow all the directions gi^en herein, 
from the first page to the last, as to food and everything, you 
should, after a rest of ten minutes following a meal, go to the 
open window or out into the air and there practice abdominal 


536 SPECIAL, TREATMENT No. THIRTY-EIGHT. 

breathing in full range for fifteen minutes or more, the longer the 
better, if you do not catch cold. Keep this up three times a day 
and note the rapid strengthening of the organs of digestion. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralstou Company* 
All Bights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 33 



If the matter of excessive fat or excessive leanness could be 
settled solely by diet, it would be a great relief to hundreds of 
thousands. That diet is the basis of every treatment cannot be 
denied; but leanness may remain when the foods are properly 
selected, and nothing should retard the accumulation of flesh. 
Here are the causes of leanness, any one or more of which may be 
applicable to your case: 

1. The food may be insufficient. 

2. It may be improper in itself. 

3. It may be proper in health, but not suited to your condition. 

4. The habits of eating may be erroneous. 

5. The food may be badly cooked. 

6. The stomach may be out of order. 

7. The food may be digested, but not assimilated. 

8. The nervevs may be out of order. 

9. The lungs may be deficient in their work. 

No malady is so dependent on other treatments as is this con¬ 
dition known as leanness. In many cases the use of some other 
treatment as a start or basis for this has resulted in the body taking 
on its normal functional life, to which a special diet is added, and 
nothing else is required. Thinking that this may possibly be your 

(537) 



538 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-NINE- 

greatest need in case you are too lean, we will suggest that you 
look into the following inquiries: 

Are you very nervous ? If so, it is generally true that a nervous 
person cannot take on flesh or fat. You should first adopt treat¬ 
ment number eight for faulty nerves, which you will find in this 
book. 

Assuming that you are of healthy nervous temperament, and 
that you do not require the treatment just referred to, the next 
inquiry is this: Are you constipated? If so, and you are not 
nervous, you should seek aid from the second treatment; but not 
both at the same time. The inactivity of the intestines causes 
the food to ferment and thus keeps good nutrition from the blood 
and general body. Remove the condition as soon as you have cured 
your nerves in case they require attention. 

Perhaps your stomach is out of order. If so you need number 
six. You cannot always tell by the pains and discomforts of that 
organ whether the trouble is there or not, for what is called 
blind indigestion is the most dangerous kind, and is not felt in 
the stomach at all. 

In this way look through all the forty-four special treatments 
and see how many of them are needed. Use but one at a time, 
for as soon as you get cured of the most serious fault you will 
often find that all the other troubles will have disappeared. This 
is strange, but is quite true. 

Nervousness is the first and most frequent cause of leanness. 
It may be due to other causes itself than that of faulty nerves, and 
this you can easily determine by following the treatment for this 
trouble. Until you get the nerves in their normal condition it is 
useless to seek to build a heavier body by the aid of diet. 

As soon as the nerves are controlled, the next step before trying 
the diet is to develop the greatest possible range of respiration. 
This is done by trying to see how much air you can exhale, by 
pressing the abdomen in as far as you can; then filling the lungs 
and allowing the abdomen to expand all it will. This exercise must 
be practiced a hundred times each day on an empty stomach, and 
never when there is food in the stomach. It must always begin with 
a long exhalation attended by pressing the abdomen in until there 
is a deep hollow in the front, lower wall of the torso. This ex¬ 
ercise, if persisted in day after day for months and very many 
times each day as directed, will of itself do more towards in- 


LEANNESS. 


539 


creasing the weight than all other aids combined. It has been 
used more than any other method. It fails only when there is 
a faulty condition of the nervous system. Study it out and adopt 
each and every detail of the suggestions. We might write a book 
around this one idea and sell it as the great secret for the cure of 
leanness; but it is not to be depended upon unless the nerves are 
normal. 

Slowness, but steadiness in all activities, should be acquired; 
for it is known that quickness is one of the causes of leanness, 
as it saps the nervous vitality. 

The diet should include the following plan of eating: 

1. Use the foods that are allowed in all three of the regimes, 
which is really using the foods of the third regime, for that plan 
includes the first two regimes also, as far as foods are concerned. 

2. In addition to this line of eating, adopt the suggestions 
which are made as follows: 

On arising in the morning, after the mouth has been rinsed and 
the teeth attended to, sip a glass of milk, into which a tablespoon¬ 
ful of powdered malted milk has been stirred until it is all dis¬ 
solved; allowing each sip of milk to remain in the mouth until 
the glands have absorbed it all. This will keep it from entering 
the stomach, or at least prevent most of it from getting there. 
After this take a glass of cold water. Drink at all times when 
there is the slightest thirst, but drink slowly so as not to flood the 
stomach. The purpose is to allow the water to pass into the 
blood through the mouth glands and not by the stomach. 

Before each meal, and again just as you get into bed for the 
night, repeat this drink of milk and malted powder. It will give 
you five glasses every twenty-four hours. Do' not drink water 
before, but always after the milk, and when thirsty between 
meals. Drink a little more water than you need for quenching 
thirst. Never pour water or any fluid into the stomach; this rule 
is of the highest importance. The reason is this: It is neces¬ 
sary that you get all the benefit possible from the food you eat. 
If while eating you send cool or cold water into the stomach the 
latter will at once contract and squeeze out the contents, which 
will depart before digestion or even maceration. This will keep 
you thin in spite of all other efforts. Never flood the stomach. 
Let all fluids rest in the mouth and throat, and you can learn in 


540 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-NINE. 


a few days to hold them in either* place. The glands will pass 
them into the blood. 

The breakfast, noon meal and evening meal may be the selection 
that yon may choose to make from the three regimes. 

A mid-forenoon lunch and one in the afternoon will be allow¬ 
able, if taken of any of the wholesome foods; and it does not 
matter much what yon select, so that desserts and rich foods are 
avoided on an empty stomach. 

After each meal take four of the chocolate candies, creams or 
\j caramels that are recommended in yonr book of Inside Membership 
in chapter sixteen. 

NEVER TOUCH ANY OTHER CANDIES. 

Never take them at any other time than just after each of the 
three main meals of the day, as they will injure the liver and hurt 
the kidneys, the heart and the stomach. Remember this. The 
candies and sweets of chapter sixteen of Inside Membership are 
the best in the world, and should be home made or else made by 
someone in whom you have faith, and who is not weak-minded 
enough to buy confectioners’ sugar, starch or glucose under the 
idea that pure ingredients are being secured. Get the sugar at 
your grocer’s, and the chocolate should be of the tried and tested 
old kinds, such as Baker’s, Epp’s, Bartlett’s etc., for impure 
chocolate is hurtful; and there are persons who are subject to 
liver and kidney troubles who cannot use any chocolate except the 
plasmon, which is made by the Plasmon Food Co. of New York 
City. It tastes like ordinary chocolate, but is free from the 
troubles suggested. 

Never eat candies, sweets or any dessert except when the stomach 
is full with wholesome foods; avoid all such things at other times; 
and take them within a few minutes after the meal, never at any 
other time. This rule must not be broken even to nibble at some 
dainty. 

Remember also that the tendency of meat-tissue is to make a 
person lean; and of fat is to make fat. It is well to eat fat meat, 
fat soups and other dishes made from such food; but the eating 
of much lean meat will offset the tendencies of the fat. There¬ 
fore it is well not to swallow meat-tissue at all. Chew it until all 
the good is secured from it and let it leave the mouth as it went in. 


t E ANNRSS, 


841 


Acids, vinegars and sour fruit are not helpful in this condition. 
They take the best elements out of the blood, the red corpuscles 
that are needed for building up the body. 

SLEEP. 

After each of the three main meals of the day, lie down and 
rest upon the back with the eyes closed and all the body devitalized, 
that is, left to fall into a flabby state. Remain in this position 
for fifteen minutes. 

Go to bed before ten o’clock each night, and get up before seven 
each morning. This habit brings the functions of the body into 
normal relationship with the forces of nature from which all life 
gets its vitality. 

Avoid senseless measures for gaining flesh. 

We have seen so many persons change from the condition of 
what they call “skin and bones” to that of normal flesh, that 
we do not hesitate to say that the following methods will accom¬ 
plish such results without failure in any instance where strictly 
adopted. The most foolish of all attempts to change the condi¬ 
tion of the body is by the use of medicines or stimulants. Some 
physicians advise beer or malt extract, both of which are enemies to 
the kidneys and may develop Bright’s Disease very suddenly. Such 
physicians may be well suspected of owning stock in breweries. 
The latter pay very large dividends, and seek a constant increase 
of business by every method that ingenuity can invent. They do 
not hesitate to present physicians with stock-shares in return for 
their co-operation in extending the use of beer. The same is true 
of the distilleries. It is safe to avoid employing a doctor for any 
purpose who advises the use of beer or liquor. If he is not honest 
in this matter, he cannot be trusted in any. If honest, he is 
ignorant of the dangers of the beers and liquors now on the market, 
and is also ignorant of the most modern methods of curing dis¬ 
eases; in neither of which cases do you want him. 

Now after the right diet has been selected, it may turn out 
that digestion and assimilation may not ensue. If this is so it is 
due to lack of sufficient secretion in the stomach and especially in 
the small intestines, for in the latter the fat-producers are really 
digested. These secretions must be excited naturally and not by 
artificial means. Bulk will stretch the stomach and give it both 
excitement and exercise; while “ bitters,” stimulants and other de- 


542 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. TIIiRTV-NlN^. 


vices merely excite it without giving it exercise or stretching. Bulk 
must not be too diluted, as in the case of milk, or of water, for 
the secretions are not then invited in. Milk should be salted 
if it curdles; and as much as a pint may be taken at a meal, either 
morning or noon, if other food is taken with it. Water dilates and 
stretches the stomach at its expense; but a plate of strong soup, 
having vegetables and meat juices in it, will help very much to 
exercise and stretch the stomach. The longer the cooking the 
more digestible is anything starchy, whether vegetables or grains. 
We have already named enough for the noon meal; but it must 
be borne in mind that our purpose is to furnish a treatment that 
will arouse the stomach to full, healthy action; that will stim¬ 
ulate it naturally, not artificially; and will give it tone without the 
use of drugs. These results are absolutely necessary; and the only 
question is, will you seek them by medicines with their long train 
of failures, or by nature with the certainty of success unless you 
become indifferent? 

Bulk may be obtained for stretching and exercising the stom¬ 
ach by rice and milk with salt or sugar, according as the one or the 
other is more agreeable; and the eating of a large quantity of rice, 
or rice and milk at noon, is advantageous; or of a medium quantity 
at the evevning meal. It is not well to stretch the stomach at the 
last meal of the day. Then bulk may be obtained by the vegetable 
soup; but the coarse, fibrous vegetables should be sifted through a 
sieve fine enough to hold back all stringy parts, and large enough 
to pass all the rest of the vegetables. The stools, or bowel ex¬ 
cretions of persons suffering from indigestion show pieces of tough 
vegetable fiber and chunks of meat wholly unaltered; which ex¬ 
plains the distress as well as the weakness that attend the effort to 
digest food. 

To excite the gastric juice to flow into the stomach is the key 
of any good treatment; and this end is best attained by the saliva of 
the mouth when mixed with dextrine or with any foods of the 
starch list, after they are thoroughly cooked and excessively 
cooked. Saliva in the form of spittle is not an aid to digestion, but 
rather a hindrance to it. Sometimes acid, but generally alkaline, 
it swings from the condition of empty saliva to that of a rich juice 
in combination with food. Its chemical change is instantaneous 
and surprising, as may be seen by analysis of the saliva that comes 
from gum-chewing, which is an injury to the blood; and the 


t E A N N E.S 3 


543 


analysis of saliva after a piece of toasted bread bas been well 
chewed. The latter is one of the most valuable and effective agents 
for exciting gastric juice in the stomach that is known; in fact it 
has no equal in nature or in medicine. In a series of experiments 
we gave small squares of toast, just a mouthful each, to six persons 
at different times, when suffering from distressing attacks of in¬ 
digestion. The direction was to “ chew and retain the toast in the 
mouth as long as possible and not swallow it until it could be held 
no longer.” In every instance the relief was immediate; and one 
woman who never could find anything to help her said, I seem 
like a new person.” With a fair degree of attention to other mat¬ 
ters, any man or woman who is afflicted with weak stomach or in¬ 
digestion may be as certain of a cure by this remedy alone as that 
to-morrow’s sun will rise. But we must not stop here. Let us 
make the cure complete and speedy. 

Every mouthful of food that enters the mouth must stay there 
as long as possible; it must be macerated, masticated and salivated. 
This applies to meat, bread, vegetables and everything else that 
enters the system, except mere liquid. No solid, however small, 
should be swallowed; all must be reduced to a fine pulp by the 
teeth, tongue and palate, all of which are constructed and intended 
for this particular purpose. Every possible shape of the teeth 
has been made by nature to cut, tear and grind the food; besides 
which, the best digesting fluid, the saliva, has been provided for the 
mouth. If there were no carelessness, no haste, at this, the begin¬ 
ning of digestion, there would be fewer cases of dyspepsia. The 
first cause of all, as we have stated, is inactivity of the stomach; 
but all physicians who have made a special study of this one dis¬ 
ease, describe such first cause to lack of secretions in the stomach; 
while one is of course the result of the other. 

Reaction following hard work, or hard exercise long continued, 
will generally build up a thin body, provided the diet and other 
habits are in conformity with the principles of this treatment. 
It has often proved the one thing that has held back the develop¬ 
ment of flesh, and we therefore suggest that, if you do not succeed 
with the plan already stated (and you ought to find it sufficient if 
faithfully followed) the use of physical culture or vigorous free 
movements should be adopted for a few weeks, then absolute rest be 
taken for as many weeks as you gave to the exercise. The latter 
must be kept up for about two hours a day and weariness of the 


544 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. THIRTY-NINE. 


most severe kind should be brought on; omitting all of the light 
step movements of the system, as they tend to keep the body thin. 
The best system is that known as Kalston Culture, which is taught 
all over the world at the present day. 

The foregoing treatment covers all possible cases of leanness, 
and a cure of this condition is certain if reasonable attention is 
given to the directions; but if you glance over them and adopt here 
and there a few ideas, you may expect to find the progress slow. 
It is much better to be thorough and thus secure the results which 
you seek. 

There can be no failure under those circumstances. 


From Rook of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved. 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 40 



©ivep Upodble 



The liver is the largest gland of the body and weighs from three 
to four pounds. It is a clear example of the economy of nature in 
managing the complicated functions of the body. It secretes bile, 
which is needed by the food to aid digestion. This bile is drawn 
from the dark, venous, poisonous blood. If the liver fails to act, 
the blood is at once poisoned by reason of the presence of this fluid, 
which should be removed as fast .as possible. Sometimes the liver 
acts slowly, and the blood shows a muddy hue; at other times this 
gland increases in size, secretes too much bile, and continuous trou¬ 
ble follows; and again the liver itself becomes diseased, and the 
general health is attacked. If the action of the liver in secreting 
bile is totally suppressed, death follows in about ten days, pre¬ 
ceded by a condition of sleep. 

The most important step to be taken in the cure of this dis¬ 
order is to keep the liver active. When there is food in the system 
the bile is more active, and thence proceeds out of the body. This 
is the most effective means of producing activity of the gland. A 
person who rises early in the morning and exercises to some extent 
for an hour or two before eating will have excited the blood without 
giving the liver an opportunity of disposing of its bile with the 
excretions; the result being that what bile is made active is reab- 


546 


SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY. 

sorbed into the blood, and the latter is unable to part with its venous 
or poisonous condition. 

The old theory that the stomach needs rest was pure guess-work. 
Every fact in nature relating to digestion disproves this theory. 
More liver and bilious troubles are due to long waits between meals 
than to anything else. No greater sin against health can be com¬ 
mitted in an ordinary way than to eat in the evening and give the 
stomach no work to do until late the next morning. Two things 
only in the act of eating may hurt the stomach: one is to overload 
it, the other is to give it improper food. But eating is a law of 
health; and, if the food is always wholesome, a person could eat 
every minute of the day and night so long as the appetite remained 
keen. 

Another absurd notion of long standing is the belief that rest is 
always a help to the stomach. It is true that the appetite is whetted 
by the pangs of hunger, but delayed hunger injures the stomach. 
A person, who should go without food for a whole day would be 
hungry; but the stomach would be too weak to digest as large a meal 
as usual. We know of boys who prepared themselves for a great 
dinner at Thanksgiving time by eating very little for a few days 
before, thinking to “ hold more ” on the day itself; but the semi¬ 
fasting developed only hunger, and when this was satisfied the 
stomach showed its weakness. 

The rule is this, and nature stamps her approval upon it in many 
very emphatic ways; wholesome food can be eaten at any time of 
the day or night, and as often as the stomach cares to receive it. Is 
the mature stomach weaker than the babe’s? An infant eats fre¬ 
quently, and, by an examination of a large number of cases, it is 
easily proved that the babe that feeds most frequently becomes the 
healthiest child. Mothers make grave mistakes in this direction. 

The liver is peculiarly located; its upper surface touches the 
diaphragm, the muscle which separates the lung cavity from the 
stomach and abdominal cavity. The liver is on the right of the 
stomach under the rib bones; its function being to secrete bile and 
other products. The countless little cells are connected by ducts of 
various sizes until they reach the largest one, or bile duct; and this 
empties its contents into the gall bladder, which serves as a storage 
house for the bile. Food is not digested in the large stomach, but 
in the duodenum, or second stomach. The former is a churn where 
the food is made into a pulp, is properly mixed with the juices re- 


LIVER TROUBLES. 


547 


quired in its preparation, and is then passed on to the duodenum 
to be digested and assimilated. If we use the word digestion to 
mean churning and mixing, then it would apply also to the action 
of the larger stomach. 

As soon as food enters the duodenum, its presence excites the 
flow of bile into this little, but very important, division of the 
stomach. If the fluid does not come in quantities sufficient for the 
needs of digestion, there is stagnation and disease, and many serious 
complications at once arise. In the first place, the special circula¬ 
tion which is assigned to the system of digestion is impaired. The 
liver itself depends for its health upon a proper supply of nutrition, 
which must come from the food after it has been assimilated and 
turned into blood; the lack or deficiency of which causes the liver to 
become still more inactive. Bile is a valuable disinfectant needed 
by the intestines to keep their contents from sending poisons into 
the blood. The lack of it soon leads to derangements of the whole 
system. 

Under the effect of the poisons in the blood, due to bad food and 
to unwholesome drinks, the organ may become inflamed, may soften 
or degenerate, may harden, may enlarge or may shrink. The for¬ 
mation of gall stones is due to similar causes. When the liver is 
acutely inflamed abscesses are formed, pus is dicharged and an in¬ 
termittent fever follows. There is but one prevention and but one 
cure; and that is regime, consisting of exercise, pure food and 
plenty of outdoor air. The liver, more than any other organ, is 
aided by the action of all the functions, and an unusual amount of 
fresh air. To be out in the fresh air is not enough. It should be 
apparent to all that the use of the fresh air is more important than 
its presence. Breathe it constantly and deeply. 

New habits can be thus formed. 

The stomach must not be allowed to remain empty more than an 
hour at a time after breakfast, and not more than ten minutes after 
rising in the morning. To move about with an empty stomach is 
sure to invite the bile into the circulation and the poisons will reach 
all parts of the body. 

On arising in the morning take a thorough washout of the mouth 
and teeth, cleanse the latter, drink a few drops of lemon juice in 
a little cold water, then drink a glass of milk, or else take four 
malted milk tablets, and a very mellow apple of a flavor that suits 
your palate exactly. This will give the liver some food to work 


548 


SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY. 


upon. If these things are not convenient or are not to your liking, 
take a slice of toasted bread not buttered and the apple. 

At breakfast time eat only the best of foods, and avoid all that is 
sickening or unfit for the stomach, as stated in the list to follow. 

In the middle of the forenoon take a lunch of toasted bread not 
buttered, with an apple as before. Never eat crackers, biscuit or 
any package goods. 

Let the dinner and the supper be light, and take a mid-afternoon 
meal of toasted bread and an apple. 

Just before retiring for the night take a bowl of broth with rice. 

Be careful to keep the system free from 

BILE. 

The main duty of bile is to aid in the emulsion of fats; that is, 
to enable them to pass out of their animal nature into a semi-milky 
form and change readily into the fluids of the body. Fat, when 
taken as food in the mouth, is not much affected by the act of mas¬ 
tication; nor does the stomach digest it. It passes out of that 
organ into the intestines, where the bile, assisting the pancreatic 
juice, acts upon it and breaks it up, completely changing the nature 
of most of it. When bile is absent or does not flow freely, the fatty 
foods form gases, become putrid and give out offensive odors. 
Many persons are charged with having bad teeth, when the foulness 
of their breath is due to the trouble with the bile; which, despite 
the fact that it is below the stomach, is forced back into the circula¬ 
tion. The same is true of offensive odors at and about the region of 
the lower stomach, or duodenum. 

A bilious attack is a familiar phrase to-day; but not so common as 
it was a few years ago when catarrh of the stomach, gastritis, and 
constipation were classed under that title. Now the name is applied 
only to one of three cases: 

1. When the bile is diminished below the normal quantity. 

2. When the bile is increased beyond the normal quantity. 

3. When the bile is altered in its character. 

Any one of the. three foregoing cases may constitute a bilious attack. 
The fact that the evacuations are of dark color, or are of light color, 
cannot be accepted as a sure guide. Sometimes they pass through 
so quickly that there is no time for the coloring matter of the bile 
to mingle with them; or it may be the case that the usual amount of 


LIVER TROUBLES. 


549 


bile-pigment has not been reabsorbed into the blood, and the color 
will be deeper than it should be. 

A bilious attack is accompanied by jaundice, but the latter passes 
away with the disappearance of the former. The difference between 
the two may be seen by comparing this with “ Jaundice.” Under a 
bilious attack the digestion is at once interfered with, the theory 
being that the bile, not circulating in the intestines, is taken up into 
the blood and reaches the stomach through its juices, where it stops 
digestion. It is also known that the bile comes backward into the 
stomach by regurgitation. 

The blood becomes vitiated by the lack of emulsion of the fats, 
and by the putrid character of them when not acted upon by the 
bile. Here we have two of the most serious phases of “ a bilious at¬ 
tack/ 5 indigestion and bad blood. The pulse is slow, the mouth has 
a bad taste which is quite bitter, the skin breaks out into eruptions 
more or less severe, the air looks yellow, sleep is disturbed and the 
nervous irritability follows. When the last two symptoms increase, 
there is a disposition to sleep continually, and the case becomes 
fatal. 

Natural Treatment. —If there is itching of the skin, common 
baking soda is effective as far as any outward application may be. 
The cause being inward, the remedy should be there applied. 

If there is a tendency towards jaundice special attention must 
be given to that part of the treatment before resuming this. The 
cause of jaundice may be twofold: 

1. Jaundice due to obstruction. 

2. Jaundice without obstruction. 

The obstruction is some impediment that prevents the flow of bile 
into the bowels; it is then absorbed into the blood, and its color 
stains the skin and flesh. This mpediment may be due to gall¬ 
stones, tumors, ulcers, local diseases, constipation and other causes. 
All cases of constipation are attended by some degree of yellow 
skin. 

Symptoms of Obstruction. —The first evidence is in the tinting 
of the face. Then there is sweating at the palms of the hands 
and at the abdomen. The urine becomes greenish, varying from a 
very light hue to a black-green. When no bile enters the intestines 
the evacuations are a drab or a light slate color. The pulse is slow, 
falling to 45, 30, and even lower. The spirits are low, the mind is 
depressed and the patient is quite irritable. From the slow pulse 


550 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY, 

of one stage of the malady there may be a reaction to a rapid, excit¬ 
able condition. The poison will reach the brain in severe cases and 
cause delirium. Hemorrhage is likely to occur and is regarded as 
unfavorable, as also are convulsions, deep sleep and blackish-green 
hue, generally ending in death. 

A naturally clear complexion indicates a perfect liver. 

Non-Obstructive. —There is great dispute among physicians to¬ 
day as to the cause of jaundice when there is no obstruction in 
the flow of bile to the bowels. The latest opinion seems to be that 
such jaundice is largely due to a disarrangement of the functions 
of the liver following an increased destruction of the red cor¬ 
puscles in the blood. This is often due to the taking of medicines 
and to poisons, especially such as chloroform, ether, phosphorus, 
mercury and other kinds; or to the poisons left by typhoid, malaria, 
yellow fever, etc. 

Natural Treatment. —When the perspiration from the body, 
particularly at the abdomen, colors the clothing, it is generally true 
that the jaundice is due to some form of obstruction; and when 
the evacuations are light drab or clay color, the same cause also 
exists. The obstruction is, in nine cases out of ten, due to an 
improper action of the intestines; and, in a majority of instances, 
this is chargeable to constipation. 

We are quite sure that medicines and doctoring are useless in 
constipation unless there is acute danger from some suddenly 
formed complication. 

We therefore refer you to the treatment for constipation if it is 
present in your case; and the chances are that all jaundice will dis¬ 
appear. When it is due to abscess, tumor, stricture, or other excep¬ 
tional cause, the symptoms of constipation may or may not be 
present. In cases that persist for weeks or months after the system 
is free of constipation, there is reason to fear cancer or atrophy. 

The diet should include milk and meat, fruit that is ripe, vege¬ 
tables and a general line of foods; but starchy articles should be 
used in moderation; all pastry should be avoided; and no alcohol 
in any form should be allowed. Never use fruit that has been sweet¬ 
ened. Fat meat, butter and fried foods are injurious. The best 
meats are those of fish and lean beef and lamb. The white of eggs 
is beneficial in a raw state. Coffee and tea are never allowable 
unless the patient is well on the road to recovery; and then only 
when strongly desired. 


LIVER TROUBLES. 


551 


All exercise should he light; heavy work and activity not being 
helpful to a cure. Avoid excessive perspiration and purging. Mod¬ 
erate exercise in the open air, with thin clothing, is beneficial; but 
there should be no risk of taking cold. Lemon juice taken just 
before eating is helpful. Four to six drops of the juice taken 
just before eating is helpful. Four to six drops of the juice in a 
fourth of a glass of water, without sugar, will be sufficient. 

As all conditions of the liver are affected more or less by what 
is eaten, it should be understood that the enemies of the liver are 
three: 1. Sugars and sweets. 2. Much meat. 3. Alcohol. 

In seeking a cure of any form of liver trouble you must first take 
steps to remove any attendant cause, such as constipation, faulty 
stomach, nervousness, catarrhs, rheumatism, etc., which can be 
done by using whatever other treatments that apply, for they are 
found in this book and are at your bidding. 

In addition to this general advice we suggest the following: 

1. Take no drugs, medicines, charged waters, or any of the 
articles that are forbidden by chapter twenty-one of your book of 
Inside Membership. 

2. Avoid boiled, starchy puddings, and foods that make starchy 
lumps in the stomach. 

3. Avoid doughy foods, as new bread, dumplings, pot-pie dough, 
and the like. 

4. Avoid all pastry, cake, and all foods made with baking powder. 

5. Avoid alcohol, tea, coffee, cocoa and chocolate. 

6. Avoid butter and fat meat, and too much meat of any kind; 
and egg-yolk. 

7. Avoid much starchy and sweet foods; and all fruits that have 
been sweetened, or to which sugar has been added. 

8. Eat no part of the animal that is not plain, lean meat. Do 
not touch the brains, sweetbread, or viscera of any kind. 

WHAT TO EAT. 

1. The white of egg. 

2. Milk and buttermilk. 

3. Fresh green vegetables; but no carrots, tomatoes or cucumbers; 
nor any matured vegetables, as beets, turnips and the like. They are 
good when half grown. 


552 


SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY. 


4. Fruits are excellent, if not too sweet. The acid fruits, if 
unsweetened, and if perfectly ripe, are the best. 

5. Toasted bread at every meal. 

6. Well-cooked cereals, if not ground into fine flour, are good. 

7. All fresh fish except salmon and mackerel. 

8. Potatoes when baked and mealy. Soggy potatoes are very 
injurious. 

9. Lamb, mutton, beef and chicken, if lean; no meat oftener than 
once a day and sparingly. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 41 



No disease has been more discussed in the last few years than this, 
and while the cause of its existence is still in dispute, the methods 
of treatment are practically agreed upon. In the first place it is 
settled that the poison which always gives rise to the malady is from 
the soil. It is earth-born. It has been and still is regarded as the 
rank energy of soils that do not expend their forces in wholesome 
vegetation. To this view there are some apparent exceptions owing 
to a misunderstanding of the terms employed. 

Of late years there have been three periods of investigation based 
upon the three following theories: 

The theory of Klebs and Tommasi-Crudeli that there was a 
specific germ known as the bacillus malarice. This prevailed about 
twenty years ago and up to the last few years. It is not now 
accepted. 

The theory of Laveran, since confirmed on every hand, that in the 
blood of a malarial patient there always was found a parasite that 
lived upon the red corpuscles of the blood and destroyed them. 
Ten years ago this claim began to receive recognition and was 
proved to be correct by such scientists as Vandyke Carter, Walter 
James, Osier, Celli, Golgi, Marchiafara, McLean and others of 
equal repute. It is now being acted upon by the medical profession 
in their treatment of the disease. 


( 553 ) 




554 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-ONE. 


The theory variously announced, to the effect that malaria is al¬ 
ways transported by mosquitoes. This is still new, but enough has 
been ascertained to enable us to reach the conclusion that mosqui¬ 
toes carry many forms of disease, as do flies. The latter are re¬ 
sponsible for the spread of some of the worst contagions the world 
has ever known. It is readily proved that flies have access to the 
rooms where the sick are kept; that in this age of progress few per¬ 
sons are enterprising enough to screen their windows and doors, and 
that the pests of the house are fought by fans that are dependent on 
the constant attention of those in charge; with the result that the 
germs of disease are carried everywhere. 

The mosquito is by far the most dangerous of all insects in its 
ability to spread contagions. To this, almost alone, is due the 
great epidemic of yellow fever; and to the mosquito is also due the 
spread of malaria. The latter disease cannot be transmitted except 
in localities where mosquitoes thrive, nor can it exist except in 
places where the rank energies of the soil do not expend their 
forces in wholesome vegetation. Thus these two causes must 
concur: 

1. Rank unexpended energies of the soil. 

2. A mosquito locality. 

Let either of these be eliminated and the malady will cease. 

Every place where stagnant water can be found should be filled; 
and still ponds, lakes, pools, harbors or inlets where mosquitoes 
may breed, should be treated with kerosene oil as often as may be 
needed to drive the danger away. This is done by pouring the oil 
on the water in the spring and during the open months; allowing 
it to go with the wind across the surface until it spreads everywhere. 
It will be seen that a very small quantity goes a great distance. It 
destroys all life, all germs and eggs. The fight against mosquitoes is 
now being made systematic and energetic, and much good will 
result. 

We now have the two causes, the combination of which makes 
malaria possible. The next thing is to see the specific action of 
the parasite that does the harm. The name recently applied to 
this germ is plasmodium. Very little is known of its nature, as it 
is never found except in malarial fever. Butschli, of Heidelberg, 
the highest authority in this line, declares that it is a truly parasitic 
organism. The latest theory of all is that it is the product of a 
poison which enters the body in a malarial district, which feeds 


MALARIA. 


555 


upon the red corpuscles of the blood and leaves in their place a dark 
pigment. 

This coincides perfectly with the real action of malarial fever; 
for in that we see the red corpuscles grow less as the disease ad¬ 
vances, and the patient is known as an anaemic, that is, one who 
lacks red blood. The malarial parasite grows rapidly and makes 
quick havoc in the body, through this one kind of destruction. 
The patient soon loses color, and the skin is darkened by the 
deposit of pigment from the parasite. This is always true. The 
loss of red blood goes on for what is called the period of develop¬ 
ment, and then the paroxysm follows. The shortest known time 
is twenty-four hours after the exposure; hut the usual period is 
from seven to fourteen days; while the longest is about two months. 
When the poison is once in the system it may remain for a long 
time and develop on slight exposure. The paroxysm has three 
stages: 

1. The chill. 2. Fever. 3. Sweating. 

The chill is always preceded by yawning, stretching, weariness, a 
headache, and uneasy feelings about the stomach. The lips change 
to a dark color. The finger joints are slightly purple, the face is 
like that of a person who suffers from the cold and the spinal 
column shakes. The last-named action is more or less violent, and 
may involve the whole body in a rigor, with a fine trembling vibra¬ 
tion, or strong shaking, causing the teeth to chatter. Nausea is 
common. The headache becomes severe. The pulse is quick. 

The fever sets in after ten or fifteen minutes of ague; sometimes 
after an hour of it. The surface of the body that was cold changes 
gradually to a condition of intense heat, and the face, hands and all 
exterior parts seem congested and inflamed. Great thirst accom¬ 
panies this. 

The sweating follows, and this relieves the heat. The paroxysms 
may return with regularity every twenty-four, forty-eight or seven¬ 
ty-two hours, the first being the most frequent kind. It is claimed 
that different parasites feed upon the blood and thus cause the 
different types. 

Natural Treatment. —If a person is living in a district where 
malaria is continually being developed the only sensible thing to 
do is to get out of it. There are some persons who never attempt 
a cure. Some remain in the place and try to fight the disease 
by maintaining a high state of vitality. This is successful if it can 


556 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-ONE. 


be done. Others stay in the place and let the malady pass awa} r of 
itself. It will do this in about two weeks, but is likely to reappear. 
Others move away and find themselves generally free from the 
attacks. We do not believe that there is any treatment except a 
high vitality that can drive out the disease as long as the patient 
resides in the malarial district. 

In case it is not possible or convenient to move away, the next 
best thing is to convert the district into a non-malarial one. This 
can only be accomplished by the united efforts of all the intelligent 
people there. Two decisive steps must be taken. The first is to 
ascertain the extent of the district, and then keep it under the 
best of cultivation, even the lanes, roads and corners. Allow no 
rank weeds to grow. Keep all other weeds cut before they are three 
weeks old. Plow them under once in every three weeks, if possible. 
Raise all the grass, crops, shrubs, flowers, trees, etc., that can be 
brought forth. In a year there will be no malarial poison. Then 
find all the pools of water, where mosquitoes might thrive, and set 
them free, fill them up, or kerosene their surface. Any community 
can change an unhealthy locality to a salubrious one by these steps. 
Remember that God told man to till the soil, and that fortune smiles 
on that people who use every available inch for culture, Never al¬ 
low a fly or mosquito to light on your skin, nor on any eatable. 
Keep all doors and windows screened and keep the insects outside. 
Avoid the drinking water of brooks, rivers and ponds in malarial 
districts. 

Destroyers of the parasites are used in the form of arsenic, qui¬ 
nine and red pepper. The French prefer arsenic. Quinine is the 
standard remedy in this country. It is much more effective in 
solution than in any other form; and where it has failed the cause 
has been due to the form in which it was taken. Still it is useless 
to claim for it a perpetual power of remedy where the victim re¬ 
mains a resident of the district. 

Red pepper, if pure, and if taken judiciously, is a far better 
remedy than quinine. Its chief victories have been achieved in 
cases where the system has been so filled with quinine as to be no 
longer affected by it. To use red pepper take a small quantity, 
about the size of a pea, and dissolve it or rather stir it in milk, say 
a half glass of it; then swallow quickly, and wash it down by 
another half glass of milk or cool water. Repeat this once every 
four to ten hours, until the parasites are destroyed by the action of 


MALARIA. 


557 


the cayenne. This is now sold at drug stores in capsules. If 
taken that way, each capsule should be followed by a half glass of 
milk to protect the stomach. The pepper may not be pure. 

Fatal malaria is more common than would be supposed. Lock¬ 
jaw has frequently followed the injection of quinine under the 
skin; as have ulcers also. Pneumonia is quick to set in with an 
attack of ague. Anaemia, or loss of red blood, is the most common 
of all fatal forms of malaria. It must not be forgotten that every 
chill denotes the loss of countless millions of red blood corpuscles, 
and is a step on the way to malarial cachexia , which is so much to 
be feared. Therefore do not disregard the serious character of the 
disease, but secure the advice of a physician if there is the least sus¬ 
picion of danger; and, better still, aid him by cleaning out the 
poisons in your locality, as well as by following all the advice we 
have given. 

Recent investigations have shown that malarial fever belongs to 
that class of diseases which require for their transmission the active 
intervention of a definite kind of mosquito—“ anopheles. 7 ’ This 
genus is not the common one of this region, but is nevertheless 
present in many localities. 

The organism causing malarial fever—the “plasmodius ma¬ 
larias ”—is probably a true parasite, and, so far as we know at 
present, finds the conditions necessary for its existence only in the 
living human body and in this genus of mosquito, the latter becom¬ 
ing infected by sucking the blood from an infected human being. 
The malarial organism having thus entered the stomach of the 
mosquito passes through certain changes in the body of the infected 
insect and at the end of about ten days reaches the poison gland. 
After this time, if the mosquito bites another human being the 
malarial organism is introduced into the circulation of the latter 
and malarial fever follows. 

DANGER ONLY THROUGH MOSQUITOES. 

So far as we know certain localities are “malarious” only be¬ 
cause they furnish favorable conditions for breeding this mosquito. 
Malarial fever would not occur in any malarious district unless some 
infected human being were in it, or came into it and infected the 
mosquitoes, which in turn infected other human beings. 

Recent observations in the intensely malarial districts in Italy 
and Africa have shown that even newcomers in these regions who 


558 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-ONE. 

purposely expose themselves by living in the most highly malarious 
areas, for example the Roman Campagna, do not develop malarial 
fever if they are carefully protected from the bites of mosquitoes, 
and further, it has been shown that this disease may be produced 
with certainty in any locality if a mosquito of the genus “ ano¬ 
pheles 99 is allowed to bite a person suffering from malarial fever and 
then, after a sufficient time, is allowed to bite a healthy person. 

Certain simple precautions suffice to protect persons living in 
malarial districts from infection. 

First—Proper screening of the house to prevent the entrance of 
the mosquitoes (after careful search for and destruction of all those 
already present in the house), and screening of the bed at night. 
The chief danger of infection is at night, inasmuch as the anopheles 
bite mostly at this time. 

Second—The confinement and continuous screening of persons m 
malarial districts who are suffering from malarial fever, so that 
mosquitoes may not bite them and thus become infected. 

Third—The administration of quinine in full doses to malarial 
patients to destroy the malarial organisms in the blood and persist¬ 
ence in the use of the remedy even for a few weeks after apparent 
recovery\ 

Fourth.—The removal of the breeding places of the mosquitoes 
through drainage, filling up of holes and surface pools and empty¬ 
ing of tubs, and pails which contain stagnant water. These mos¬ 
quitoes particularly breed in surface rain pools and surface stag¬ 
nant water where there are no fish; also exceptional in pails, tubs, 
barrels and tanks of standing water, though they seem mostly to 
prefer natural accumulations. 

Fifth—In pools which cannot be drained or filled, the destruction 
of the mosquito larvae by the use of petroleum thrown upon the sur¬ 
face, by the introduction of minnows and other small fish, which eat 
the larvae or by both methods. 

These measures, if properly carried out, will suffice greatly to 
restrict and largely to prevent the occurrence of new malarial in¬ 
fections. 

It must be remembered that when a person is once infected the 
organism may remain in the body for many years, producing from 
time to time lapses of the fever. A case of malarial infection in a 
house, whether the person is actively ill or the infection is latent, 
in a locality where the anopheles mosquitoes are present, is a con- 


MALARIA. 


559 


stant source of danger,, not only to the inmates of the nouse, Dut to 
the immediate neighborhood, if proper precautions are not taken. 

Stagnant water, swampy lands, night mists, upturned ground, 
and miasma, all of which have been regarded as causes of the dis¬ 
ease, have proved to be but favorable conditions for certain common 
mosquitoes to breed, and the theory has finally been formulated: 
“ No mosquitoes, no malaria.” 

The mountain negroes in East Africa guessed this fact long ago, 
for when they go down to the plains they say that they get a dis¬ 
ease called mbu from certain insects of the same name, which sting 
them and cause them to fall sick. It is interesting to find that the 
insect mbu is the mosquito, and the disease mbu is malaria. 

In the light of the mosquito malaria theory, many of the fanciful 
precautions of travellers in the tropics turn out to be eminently 
practical. Some have asserted that the “ miasma ” could not be 
breathed through a gauze veil. Emin Pasha held to the tradition 
that malaria could not pass through mosquito nets, and always took 
a pair of curtains with him when travelling in Africa. The Jeevas 
of the Punjab, who fish and catch wild fowl in reedy and malarial 
marshes, say that they never get the disease though they stay in 
their boats all night long, because they wrap themselves at sunset 
in a peculiar costume which covers them from head to foot, and they 
always keep a smouldering fire in the boat. 

Screens ought to be effective in this country. 

.Though many persons believe that malaria entered by the skin, 
like the Russian physician who said that he had never contracted 
the disease in malarial countries, because he had always slept in a 
mask and gloves, yet it never seemed to occur to physicians that it 
was the mosquito that punctured the skin and jabbed the germs 
into the blood. Now that the connection between mosquitoes and 
malaria is established, it is easy to see that all the accumulated ex¬ 
perience concerning the habits of the disease would apply just as 
well to the insect. 

The actual demonstrable proof of the mosquito malaria theory 
took place in the Roman Campagna last summer, when an English 
royal commission made a test experiment. These scientific men 
created for themselves what they called the “ mosquito hut,” a 
severely simple house whose chiefest attribute was that it was 
mosquito proof. There they lived and worked through the whole 
three months of the Roman summer, in the midst of the most pes- 


560 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-ONE- 


tilential weather. Cases of malaria were on every side of them, 
but none of the party fell ill. 

The surest relief from insect swarms in the woods is the method 
used by the Hudson Bay Company. Pyrethrum powder is moist¬ 
ened, shaped into little cones like a chocolate drop, and dried in an 
oven. When these are burned in a tent or room, they smolder 
slowly and stupefy all insects, which fall to the floor and may be 
swept up and burned. For personal relief the woodsman will 
neglect any part of his toilet sooner than his tar oil for his face and 
hands, and if he has work to do, he will set his birch bark smudges 
where the breeze will blow the fumes towards him. 

The chief insect problem for the coming years is the extermina¬ 
tion of the mosquitoes in malarial neighborhoods. To keep them 
out of houses, the first thing is to screen the doors and windows, 
and then to make a daily round of each room with that most efficient 
of home-made traps, a tin can cover nailed like a shallow saucer on 
the end of a broomstick and filled with kerosene. This being ele¬ 
vated to the ceiling, and held for a second under each clinging mos¬ 
quito, causes him to be overcome with the fumes of the oil, and to 
fall into the trap. 

If no one ever made excursions out of doors after nightfall with¬ 
out the gauze veil and the Jeevah fisherman’s costume, malaria 
would soon become extinct; but the problem can scarcely be solved 
in that way. The suburban dweller, who considers the imputation of 
mosquitoes and malaria a slander on his property, must organize a 
relief committee, and see that every water barrel is covered; that 
every rain hollow is filled up with earth; that every little pond is 
drained off; that every brook runs free, and that every larger pond is 
stocked with fish to eat up the pupas and larvae. Then he must start 
a subscription for petroleum—gallons, nay, hogsheads, he will re¬ 
quire—and the surface of all the water in the neighborhood must be 
sprayed with it once a month throughout the summer. Five dollars’ 
worth will treat a hundred thousand square feet, covering it with a 
thin layer which prevents the young from breathing, and the 
female from laying her eggs. Petroleum is, up to the present day, 
the most effective and indeed the only known sure slayer of the mos¬ 
quito, and therefore the only true preventive of the ravages of 
malaria. 


From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, by Ralston Company. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special • Treatment 

NUMBER 42 





This malady is better understood to-day than ever before in the 
history of diseases. 

It is generally a warning that the whole system is being drained 
of its vitality, or that some one nerve is being overtaxed. The 
warning conveyed in a neuralgic pain is this: Stop ! 

Sometimes another malady will give rise to neuralgic pains, 
such, for instance, as gout, rheumatism, neurasthenia, diabetes, al¬ 
coholism, etc. 

So readily will the nerves tell you of the loss of vitality that 
a single indiscretion will bring on severe pains. If you are up till 
a late hour at night, and your system is not able to endure the 
loss of sleep, you will have neuralgic pains the next day in the head 
or about the heart. 

The same is true if you have indulged in the sexual act at a time 
when your vitality was low; and children conceived at such a time 
will be weak in mind and body. 

Hard study at night, or any tax of the mental or physical powers, 
will bring on these pains the next day. Loss of sleep from any cause 
will do the same thing. The natural course to pursue is to take the 
two treatments in this book that give relief from these causes, num¬ 
ber eight and number thirty-five. 

36 


(561) 






562 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-TWO. 


Then a very small bit of food or gravy that is too rich or difficult 
to digest will set up stomach weakness, and this will be reflected 
either kt the heart or in the head. Many persons who think they 
have incurable heart trouble will find that a change of foods and 
habits at the table will overcome the supposed affection. 

On the other hand the inability of the blood to draw from the 
food enough sustenance to build the body in all its required details 
will be reflected in neuralgic pains. The cure for this lack of as- 
similation is to be found in giving a certain class of foods until the 
trouble has been overcome. These foods are those that have special 
power in making nerve tissue and nerve force. They are: 

Olive oil, to be given after each meal; a teaspoonful one hour 
after each of the three meals of the day. 

Marrow soups. These are very nutritious in this respect. 

Roasted almonds. These may be eaten at any time except within 
ninety minutes of a meal. The nuts must be chewed to a fine pulp 
in the mouth and then held there as long as possible. If they are 
swallowed before they are masticated to a fine, silky powder, they 
will add to the distress of the stomach and nerves. They do not 
give up their virtue until they have been made very fine by long 
chewing. 

The fat of meat. Several physicians who have made a study of 
thousands of cases of neuralgia declare that they have found the fat 
of ham and of bacon, unless cooked crisp, to give relief at once 
even when medicines could not help. 

These four items afford the nutrition that is directly needed in 
the class of cases we have described. 

Habits of life have much to do with the prevalence of the pains, 
and we suggest that attention be given to the following suggestions: 

1. Do not excite the nerves by exposure to drafts while in a state 
of perspiration. 

2. Do not allow the facial nerves to be excited by toothache any 
longer than necessary. 

3. Do not read by a dim light, either at twilght or by the flicker 
of gas. 

4. Do not read while lying down. 

5. Do not strain the eyes by looking steadily at any object, es¬ 
pecially at a distance. 

6. Do not read while facing any light, artificial or natural. The 
light should always fall sidewise on the matter to be read. 


563 


NEURALGIA. 

7. Do not indulge in excessive emotion, either of anger or sorrow. 
The nerves are unstrung and become easily subject to neuralgia. 

8. Do not retire later than 9.30 or 10, if neuralgia is a frequent 
assailant. 

9. Never eat less than three meals a day, if subject to this trouble. 
Plenty of good food, plain and coarse, will oxygenize the blood. 

10. Avoid too much brain work. 

11. Do not use the eyes when riding in a carriage, street cars or 
on the railway. The jarring motion will result in neuralgia. 

12. Get the right size of glasses if you have pains in the back of 
the head or in the eyeballs while reading; in case you already have 
glasses, it is possible that they do not fit your eyes. If you have 
such pains and do not wear glasses, go to some skilled expert and 
find out if you need them or not. Many a case of headache and 
neuralgia has defied all treatments until such step has been taken. 

13. In case the eyes become tired, stop using them for a few 
minutes, lie down, close the eyes and rest as quietly as possible. 

14. When loss of sleep or some excess is the cause of the pains, 
devote as much of the following day as you can spare to resting in 
the manner just described. We have known of five minutes’ sleep 
driving the pain away, if taken the next day during the working 
hours. 

In case any of the foods named are not suited to some other 
condition, they should be omitted, and it will be found that there is 
a malady that needs immediate attention. Loss of sleep should be 
first of all overcome by using the treatment for that condition. 
Nervousness may require attention also. 

Whatever will restore the vitality and all normal conditions will 
in almost every instance drive neuralgia out of the body. It must 
be regarded as a symptom rather than a disease in itself, for it is 
not in the nerves so much as in their action; that is, it does not 
affect the tissue or construction of the nerves themselves. A per¬ 
son may have the most perfect nerves and yet be neuralgic if some¬ 
thing has taken the vitality out of the system or lowered it by 
excess or indiscretion of some kind. 

Neuralgia is a warning, and we should heed it; for many mala¬ 
dies come upon us without warning, and it is too late to bring back 
the health. 

Before coming to a hasty conclusion in the matter of the real 
cause of neuralgia, study your recent habits or doings. If you have 


564 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTV-TWO. 

been eating any food or fruit to which you are not accustomed, it 
is well to ascribe the attack to the change in diet. If you are 
troubled with blind digestion, neuralgia is sure to attend or to 
follow that; and by blind indigestion is meant that you eat things 
that are forbidden in chapter twenty-one of Inside Membership, 
and you say they do not hurt you because you do not feel any 
pain in the stomach or intestines after you have eaten them. 

This recalls the case of a man who has recently died, and who 
suffered from rheumatism and weak heart. The day before his 
death he ate cake, ice-cream, mince pie and other things that are 
forbidden in chapter twenty-one mentioned; and he declared in 
the most positive terms that not one of them hurt him in the 
slightest degree; in fact, he never felt better in his life. Not 
a pain in the stomach and not a pain in the intestines; but his 
heart stopped; and, when they cut him open after death, they 
found the mince pie, the cake, the ice-cream and other stuff in a 
good state of preservation, with the exception of the fact that the 
ice-cream had melted. This is blind indigestion; painless, yet 
deadly. The stomach and alimentary canal have become paralyzed 
so that they give back no pain; yet the acute gastritis stopped the 
heart. 

Neuralgia is one of the results of such indiscretion. 



From Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, 1904, hy Ralston Company, 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 

Special # Treatment 


NUMBER 43 



It has for a long time been known that there is a connection be¬ 
tween diseases of the skin and the food and drink that enter the 
stomach; but it is only in the last few years that any systematic 
scientific study has been made of the subject from this standpoint. 
Progress is being made very rapidly toward a perfect understanding 
of the cause and effect. 

Of course it is well known that the skin is the result of what we 
eat and drink, and that we cannot make a good product from a bad 
supply; but certain germ diseases originate in a skin that is of feeble 
vitality and are independent of the question of diet. 

The following skin diseases are directly caused by what we eat 
and drink: erythema, urticaria, acne, eczema, and scorbutic erup¬ 
tions. 

Diseases that are not directly caused by diet are influenced by 
what is eaten and drunk; and may thus be improved or made worse 
as we will. 

Skin diseases may arise where the diet is correct, as where the 
perspiration is suddenly checked. Athletes are almost always suf¬ 
ferers from various eruptions on the skin, many of them having 
boils, pimples, etc., despite the best of foods and the utmost absten¬ 
tion from alcohol. Their fault is in a full, free perspiration in 
which the food in process of oxidation and the urea is being rapidly 

( 565 ) 



566 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-THREE. 

produced and eliminated through the pores; then a rest is taken 
in a cold draught, or a cold water bath follows; the urea is shut 
up in the skin, and the partly oxidized portion turns to uric acid. 

The same rule holds good with men and women who, when over¬ 
heated, seek to get cool quickly. It is more often true of young folks 
who are active, as in running, playing, dancing, etc. They are 
more impetuous, less controllable, and rarely care for consequences. 
A girl of twelve to eighteen years of age who is overheated will get 
cooled off, regardless of the result to the skin. She argues in her 
mind, if at all, that a little powder will cover the blotches on the 
face, and no one can see them elsewhere. Nearly all boys and girls 
have “ horrible skins,” to use a term that is common. 

ACNE. 

This is one of the most frequently seen of the skin diseases that 
owe their existence to improper food. It consists of pustules that 
force their way through from the underside to the surface, showing 
white or yellow looking heads or points. They can be easily traced 
through to the fat glands below, called the sabaceous glands, be¬ 
cause they deposit fat to keep the skin supplied with oil, and to 
feed the hair. Were it not for this wise provision of nature the 
hair would be dry, and the skin over the whole body would crack 
and break as when chapped. The woman who very properly objects 
to a shiny face and seeks to destroy the oil supply is doing much 
more and much worse, for she is preparing the way for pimples, 
blotches, etc. No skin ever shows oil on the surface so as to 
shine, if the diet is correct; and you cannot with powder and 
applications overcome a defect on the surface of the skin that is 
kept alive from errors within. 

Acne appears on young people during the age of puberty, say 
from thirteen to sixteen years; and, if once seated, may remain for 
four or more years; sometimes through life. It is always caused 
by improper diet, or errors in eating; but needs like everything 
else a condition favorable to its origin. In puberty there are im¬ 
portant changes going on in the nutrition of the body, and these 
furnish the combination required when the diet is wrong. 

So small are the fat glands under the skin that the least ob¬ 
struction will set up serious inflammation among them. The fats 
of the food find their way there; and, if not easily assimilated 
in the construction of the serum, will furnish just the obstruction 


SKIN DISEASES. 


667 


that causes the inflammation. Fat is in a most imperfect condition 
when it is the result of frying or baking. Pastry depends on fat 
for its shortness; but its flour has not been cooked long enough 
to be digestible, and its baked fat, with or without the indigestible 
flour, is certain to endanger the health of the fat glands. Experi¬ 
ments made with a large proportion of pastry, cake, twice-cooked 
meats, doughnuts, fried potatoes, fried ham, fried pork, fried 
bacon, fried eggs and especially pancakes (of which white flour, 
self-rising flour and buckwheats are the very worst) have always 
proved that acne would form on the skin even when it had been 
free from disease. In slightly less degree the same malady may 
be originated from greasy soups, hot bread, sweets, candy and an 
excessive use of white bread from fine white flour. 

Experts and specialists say that fried fats, pastry, cake, alcohol 
in every form, tea, coffee, nuts, cheese, sausages, and every kind 
of rich food should be avoided. Great stress is laid upon the disuse 
of alcohol, because that poison always tends to inflame the glands of 
the skin. That is really its first action. But it is easily proved that 
both facts are true; namely, that alcohol will develop acne, and 
that fried foods, etc., will also do it just as quickly without the use 
of alcohol. 

The quickest known cure of acne, except by the exclusive milk 
diet, is to cease the use of tea, coffee, beer, wine, liquor, if any one or 
more of these are used; also to cease eating all the objectionable ar¬ 
ticles mentioned. Do not suddenly check the perspiration even if not 
chilled; remember that any cooling draft may stop the pores when 
you are overheated, and you may have no warning of it at the time. 

It is remarkable how quickly the change of diet will begin to 
show in effecting a cure. If the progress is not rapid enough you 
can make use of the milk diet, which is best employed as follows: 
On arising in the morning and retiring at night drink a cup of 
hot water, as hot as can be taken. One hour after arising, and 
every hour during the day, drink a pint of hot milk, and eat a half 
slice of very brown toasted white bread thinly spread with butter. 
Continue for a few days. The question of bathing and other care 
of the skin is treated of later. 

Erythema is called a rose rash, and is hardly distinguishable 
from"the hives. It follows the taking of medicines; or, as some 
physicians claim, it is more often due to dirty clothing, wearing 
the same garments too many days without change, lack of bathing, 


568 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-THREE. 

etc. In all cases that so arise the disturbance passes away as soon 
as the cause is removed. 

Urticaria is of the same appearance as erythema, etc., and is 
specifically known as nettle rash. It has the same blotches or 
wheals, and is attended by stinging and itching. It is variable, 
fugitive and evanescent, being liable to appear and disappear sud¬ 
denly. Sometimes it is a mere blush of the skin; at other times 
it is raised, and often serum or water forms under the surface. 
Its cause is usually associated with something eaten. It often fol¬ 
lows a meal in which fish, oysters, clams, lobster, crabs, or shrimps 
may have been partaken. Any one of these may cause the trouble; 
but we believe it due to a condition of the food, for when perfectly 
fresh and clean there is no unpleasant consequence from eating 
any of them. Strawberries give rise to nettle rash in some per¬ 
sons, but not when the berries are fully ripened and not decayed. 
Bananas are nearly always poisonous, and that is due to the fact 
that they are picked green and ripened in the impure air of cellars. 
Tomatoes are likewise the cause of it at times. So is a change of 
drinking water. 

Uticaria or nettle rash may be relieved by sponging the skin 
with common baking soda, a teaspoonful to a quart of water, and 
applied almost constantly. Boric acid is also good. Alum water 
is frequently used. In extreme and persistent cases take a solution 
of menthol and choral, each a drachm, in two ounces of alcohol 
and camphor water, each an ounce; and rub on with a sponge. No 
medicine should ever be taken internally for it. 

Hives, so-called, are benefited by a constant sponging with any 
of the solutions just mentioned. Care must be taken not to 
get the system chilled by exposure to cold, dampness or draughts. 
If hot water and carbolic soap are used in bathing, much good will 
follow, provided the skin is carefully rinsed in tepid water, and 
then gently rubbed or patted until very dry. After this apply any 
of the solutions referred to. Remember that the exudations from 
the skin lodge upon the clothing and act as a direct poison to the 
surface, from which the disease often comes. 

ECZEMA. 

This is the most common of all kinds of skin diseases, except 
perhaps acne in scattered form. The latter condition is almost 
universal, 


SKIN DISEASES. 


569 


Eczema consists of small papules on the skin which cover it. 
They quickly burst and result in a gummy fluid which stiffens into 
a thick crust as it dries. The affliction is attended by itching. 

Eczema occurs at all stages of life from infancy to old age. 
It is most common with children when in the first and second 
periods of teething. But it appears as an acute as well as chronic 
disease at any year of youth or maturity. It suddenly follows a 
heavy meal, or continued overeating. All physicians agree that 
there are three great causes of this malady: 

1. Overeating. 

2. Undereating attended by unclean linen. 

3. Improper food or drink. 

The skin is a far more delicate structure than may be sup¬ 
posed. It responds quickly to any change of diet or drink; or to 
any condition of the system. The persistent presence of eczema 
while a child is teething shows the connection between the health 
of the skin and internal disturbances. One of the quickest cases 
we have ever personally known arose from the eating of a piece 
of steak for breakfast which, was slightly tainted; followed by three 
hours’ exposure to the hot sun. The whole body was soon one 
mass of small sores which did not disappear for several days. 
Eestaurant meals cause eczema to a great extent, and in some cities 
restaurant patrons may be recognized by this malady. It is due to 
the use of meats long after they should have been buried; as well 
as to the general uncleanliness of the places. 

The starving poor who are troubled with eczema are always 
found to be of the most filthy habits. We do not believe under¬ 
eating is otherwise the cause of the malady. 

Overeating has so often been followed by eczema when all other 
causes have been absent; and the connection between the two is so 
well understood that there is no doubt as to its influence. The over¬ 
eating is either chronic or temporary. The latter is more likely to 
disturb the health of the skin, owing to its irregularity; but both 
may lead to the trouble. Some persons on special occasions indulge 
too much, and this sets up a serious disturbance of the functions of 
the skin that is difficult to overcome at once. 

One case is typical of many others. A man about thirty years 
of age took his meals at a boarding house where the meats were 
well cooked to conceal their lack of freshness. He never had 
eczema before and did not think of the real cause. He accordingly 


570 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-THREE. 

began to take medicines; it grew worse. He took advice from 
various sources; but did not lessen his skin disease. At last he 
struck what was called a sure thing, a series of Turkish baths. He 
got worse. He then made an attempt to get well by the use of 
common sense. We advised him to find out how things were con¬ 
ducted in the kitchen. He did so after some trouble. He left the 
place, and under our advice he continued exactly the same diet 
elsewhere, except that the foods and meats were known to be fresh, 
and he got well. His eczema began to disappear almost immedi¬ 
ately. This shows the relation of food to the health of the skin. 

One specialist in this disease states that 61 per cent, of his 
patients ate meat three times a day. Another of wider experience 
who devoted himself exclusively to this subject states that 56 per 
cent, of his patients were eaters of meat three times a day. Both 
of them, as well as numerous others, adopted the plan of reducing 
the meat to one meal a day, and then advising beef, mutton or 
lamb as the only meats. If the reduction does not bring improve¬ 
ment, cut off all desserts. Shellfish of every kind should be avoided. 
Some of the worst cases of eczema have followed the eating of fried 
oysters, when the latter were fresh, and of oysters in stews when 
they were a little old. 

The only absolute cure that can be guaranteed in persistent cases 
is the adoption of the following diet and treatment: Drink three 
quarts of milk a day, and take two slices of bread thoroughly 
toasted and browned at each of three meals. On arising and on 
retiring drink from a half pint to a pint of hot water, as hot as 
can be taken. Drink the milk at such intervals of time as will 
best dispose of it; once every two hours being preferable. If it is 
not supposed to be fresh, boil it, or bring it just to the boiling 
point. Change the clothing daily, wear silk underclothing if the 
disease does not show decrease in three days, and keep the skin 
clean, but avoid cold water. Hot water bathing followed by tepid 
or lukewarm water is best, every other day. 

When any form of skin disease shows special soreness or itch¬ 
ing, take camphorated lard oil on a silk cloth and lay over the 
place. The ribbed silk is by far the best. Change it every fifteen 
minutes by adding more of the oil. Always look to the diet for 
a cessation of the cause. 

Children are treated to the routine dosing with iron and cod- 
liver oil. This is a most barbarous, useless and hurtful treatment; 


SKIN DISEASES. 


571 


and the use of either of these medicines should always he avoided. 
Iron so weakens the lungs as to pave the way to consumption. 
Cod-liver oil holds the same relation to natural food that the thorn 
on the stem holds to the rose. 

By the diet and treatment recommended in this pamphlet it 
is certain that the disease will pass away. Then the patient should 
get renewed strength by adopting the full plan of high regime as 
described in the book of Inside Membership. No more will be 
heard of the malady. 

PSORIASIS. 

This is a chronic disease of the skin accompanied by bright 
red patches of considerable size covered with bright, shiny scales 
almost white. In some cases it is hereditary. In other cases it 
follows a severe nervous shock. But in most instances it is due 
to years of errors in eating, and is probably caused by high sea¬ 
soning of meats, gravies and foods in general. The sauces that 
are used to create an appetite, the ketchups and much else in the 
same line, may lead to it. 

Psoriasis has been directly traced to the eating of oatmeal; and 
the experiments show that hives, rash and this malady are all in¬ 
creased and decreased, where they exist, by the increased or de¬ 
creased use of oatmeal. This view is now sustained by leading 
authorities on the subject of skin eruptions. 

ROSACEA. 

This is a chronic disease of the face, generally about the mouth, 
nose, and cheeks and occasionally the forehead. It may have its 
origin from the same cause as psoriasis; but of all known and 
studied cases fully 98 per cent, have either been addicted to the use 
of alcohol or strong tea. Rosacea is usually understood to be an 
alcoholic disease. But old women who never touch alcohol have 
been seriously afflicted by the disease as a direct result of tea 
drinking; and the fact that this habit is a vicious one can be at¬ 
tested by increasing its use on the one hand, and ceasing it al¬ 
together on the other hand. 

In rosacea the skin is generally so deformed that a permanent 
obliteration of the blemishes is not possible; but they may be much 
reduced by adopting the careful diet heretofore prescribed for acne. 


572 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-THREE. 


In all kinds of skin diseases follow the plan of high regime, and 
make use of the treatments one, two and thirty as aids to this treat¬ 
ment. 


from Book of Complete Membership. Copyrighted, ldo4, by Baiston Com^anj. 
All Rights Reserved, 


RALSTON HEALTH CLUB 


Special • Treatment 


NUMBER 44 



# Weak {leapt * 


The heart is to be regarded as an engine, consisting of valves and 
pumping energies, known as contractions, by which the blood is 
pumped to all parts of the body. 

As the blood carries all the nutrition by which the wonderful 
complications of the system are fed and kept in health and life, 
day by day, and hour by hour, it follows that this blood must be 
pumped by an engine of great power; and such is the heart, for its 
giant strokes, by which the entire mass of the blood is driven to 
every part of the body in a very short time, are feats of greater 
strength than any machinery of equal size can perform. 

This marvelous little engine throbs on continually at the rate 
of 100,000 beats per day, 40,000,000 per year, often 3,000,000,000 
without a single stop. It is the most powerful of machines. “ Its 
daily work is equal to one-third that of all the muscles. If it 
should expend its entire force in lifting its own weight vertically, 
it would raise 20,000 feet in an hour.” Its vitality is amazing. 
Lay upon a table the heart from a living sturgeon, all palpitating 
with life, and it will beat for days as if itself a living creature. The 
most tireless of organs while life exists, it is one of the last to yield 
when life expires. So long as a flutter lingers at the heart, we 
know the spark of being is not quite extinguished, and there is 

(573) 



574 SPECIAL TREATMENT No, FORTY-FOUR. 


hope of restoration. During a life such as we sometimes see, it 
has propelled half a million tons of blood, yet repaired itself as it 
has wasted, during its patient, unfaltering labor. The play of its 
valves and the rhythm of its throb have never failed until at the 
command of the great Master Workman “ the wheels of life have 
stood still.” 

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “ Our brains are seventy-five 
year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then 
closes the case, and gives the key into the hands of the Angel of the 
Resurrection. Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will 
cannot stop them; they cannot stop themselves; sleep cannot stop 
them; madness only makes them go faster; death alone can break 
into the case, and, seizing the ever-swinging pendulum which we 
call the heart, silence at last the clicking of the terrible escapement 
we have carried so long beneath our wrinkled foreheads.” 

The valves are the most important part of this organ. They 
open to let the blood through, and close on each palpitation or heart 
beat. If there were no valves, the blood in rushing through would 
be forced both ways, forward and back; and to prevent this, nature 
has very kindly and wisely fixed the valves so that they open to let 
the blood come in and close so that it cannot go back again. Thus 
it keeps on its course, going around through the circuit of the 
entire body many times a day. 

The heart, more than any other organ, is affected by lack 
of oxygen; for this lack, coupled with the collection of soil vegeta¬ 
tions due to bad food, weakens the tissues of the heart itself. As 
the cause of heart trouble is the lack of vitalized oxygen, so the 
natural cure is to supply the lungs with such sustenance, and thus 
aid the heart. A few facts may be of interest. 

1. The heart pumps the blood through the entire body. 

2. The heart itself is washed continually by good and bad blood, 
generally the latter, and is affected by it, 

3. The bad blood is purified, if at all, by the lungs, before it 
comes into the heart. 

4. The lungs can only purify the blood by a liberal supply of 
vitalized oxygen. 

5. Listless, inactive people do not breathe deeply, and they con¬ 
tinually starve the lungs of their oxygen. 

6. Discouraged and ambitionless people are not deep breathers, 
and do not give the lungs their proper share of oxygen. 


WEAK HKAftf. 


575 


7. Excitement quickens and shortens the health, depriving the 
lungs of oxygen. 

8. When the heart is continually washed by impure blood, which 
is soil-laden blood, the soil is left to clog the tissues and veins, and 
eventually to destroy some part of the structure of that organ. 

The two conclusions to be drawn from the foregoing remarks are 
these: 

A. The heart must have more pure air. 

B. The blood must have plain and wholesome food. 

As to the question of getting more air, all that need be said is 
that the patient must, by slow and steady degrees, acquire a deeper 
habit of breathing when out of doors, must be out of doors a large 
amount of the time, and must inhale air that has been vitalized by 
the sun, which means air on which the sun has shone or is shining. 
The increase in the vigor and fulness of the heart-beats means the 
forcing of the blood to all parts of the body, the re-building of 
diseased tissue including that of the heart itself, and the purifying 
of all the organs on which the heart depends for its aid in sustain¬ 
ing the great burdens that are thrust upon it. Deeper, fuller, more 
vital respirations will accomplish this. 

Then it is not known as a. rule that the heart responds to the 
condition of the stomach. For instance, if there is ferment in the 
stomach or the intestines, the gases as well as the pressure are more 
severe on the heart than on the stomach or bowels. Few persons 
realize this all-important fact. Even those who are told that food- 
ferment is the most common source of heart weakness or pains at 
the region of the heart or neuralgia in that locality, are very reluc¬ 
tant to credit the assertion. A woman who was told that to-day 
made reply: “ How absurd to think that what I eat can affect the 
heart.” Another woman who had almost met death from eating 
pastry and drinking coffee as a lunch was told that she was a 
victim of heart failure due to gastritis or inflammation of the 
stomach; and she did not understand how that could be. She soon 
afterwards heard that her sister had died of heart failure due to 
acute indigestion; and, on following the papers, she read of seven¬ 
teen such deaths in three weeks, all heart failure caused by acute 
indigestion. Then she began to think that the stomach had some¬ 
thing to do with the heart. It has more to do with it than any 
other function of the body. 

If you have any form of heart disease, no matter what, it will 


676 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-FOtJR. 


result in death, if at all, through some indiscretion in eating. Of 
this you may be assured. 

Now suppose you have an incurable form of heart disease; the 
fact that you are alive enough to read these pages is evidence that 
it is not yet fatal. If you have been able to live with it up to this 
moment, even if you have had it but a short time, it may be set 
down as a fact that you are able to live on for some time to come if 
you do not trifle with the condition. 

An accident may bring matters to a crisis, and a fatal one per¬ 
haps; such as running for a car; or hurrying up or down stairs; 
or getting excited in conversation; or engaging in a quarrel; or 
attending a play where the acting is intense; or overworking, over¬ 
playing or long periods of toil of mind or body; or eating something 
that is difficult to digest; or taking ice water into the stomach so 
rapidly as to lower the temperature of the heart and thereby put on 
it that excess of strain that is too much for its powers; or drinking 
charged waters, or beer, champagne or liquor, and over exciting the 
heart or else setting up the ferment-condition in the stomach that 
may cause a collapse of the heart; or any one of many acts that are 
likely to end life suddenly by giving the heart a greater strain thail 
it can bear. 

But aside from the question of accident the heart may carry its 
malady for years without reaching the crisis, if you are very careful 
in what you eat and drink. 

This rule applies to all forms of heart disease. It is not sup¬ 
posed that fatty degeneration can be cured when it has gone far* 
enough to involve all the tissues; but it is certain that many persons 
have lived a long time with the disease; and they have been able to 
keep alive by extraordinary care as to foods, drinks and habits. The 
suggestions we have already made in this treatment would save 
practically all those who adopted them faithfully. 

Nor is it supposed that valvular diseases of the heart are curable 
whether they are due to rheumatic inflammation or to degenerative 
changes; but there are plenty of instances where life has been pro¬ 
longed for many years by great care as to foods, drinks and habits; 
while exactly similar cases are found in which death followed in¬ 
discretion in eating or in drinking or some act that caused strain on 
the heart. 

And so we might go on mentioning all cases of disease of this 
organ where the patients are living along now, most of them in great 


WEAK HEART. 


577 


fear of a fatal ending without warning; yet all of which might be 
given many years of life if care were to be taken of the heart. 

As has always been announced the purpose of the Ralston treat¬ 
ment is not to take the place of the physician in acute forms of dis¬ 
ease, for he should always be called in such cases; but rather to make 
his services as unnecessary as possible. 

If we can suggest a plan of life that will protect the heart, no 
matter what the cause of the disease may be, and if that plan will be 
constantly making the conditions more favorable even when they 
cannot be wholly cured, we shall have accomplished a great deal in 
the effort to assist the patient. In this malady we can then say to 
each and every sufferer: 

Save what health you now have. 

Add to it all you can. 

HABITS THAT ARE HELPFUL. 

1. The action of the heart must be increased in its carrying 
power without adding any extra tax to its burdens. This is done by 
the plan of outdoor life, deepening the respirations, and keeping as 
active as the weak condition of the organ will allow. 

2 . Never get tired. But remember that the more you rest the 
more readily you will weary. The tired feeling visits the vigorous 
and strong man and woman in proportion as idleness or long rests 
are encouraged. It is possible for a person who is perfectly well to 
get so tired that a standing position of two minutes will he very 
wearying, even to the point of painful fatigue. 

3. Keep actively on the feet, and at the same time avoid getting 
tired by rests. To stand a minute and rest a half-minute will not 
weary anyone. The greatest systems of training the heart muscles 
embody the idea of constant action with rests every minute; and 
patients are made to walk up steep hills by this easy gradation of 
effort; as they get more strength the rests are not as frequent. 

4. Be on the safe side by underdoing rather than overdoing. This 
rule must at all times be present in the mind. You must school 
your habits to conform to this idea. 

5. Study placidity as the actor would study it; to assume it if 
you feel it not. Be calm under all circumstances. The great men 
and women of the world know how to conceal every emotion and 
every apparent interest in good or bad news. They are absolutely 
calm. Study this as an art and you can command it at all times. 

37 


578 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-FOUR. 


6. Never allow ice water to enter the stomach; it lowers the heat 
of the heart, causes its vitality to suddenly drop, and throws an 
extra strain upon it when the reaction sets in. 

7. Take no stimulants unless ordered by the doctor, who will in 
some cases prescribe whiskey when there is danger of a collapse. 
Remember that for every moment of false stimulation such as you 
get from tea, coffee and alcoholic drinks, you must pass through an 
equal moment of depression, and at such time the heart will have a 
much greater tax placed upon it. 

8. Tea quiets the nerves, reduces the pain and stills the system 
to some extent. It has always been an enemy of the heart, and its 
use has led to more deaths than alcohol. 

9. Coffee is almost as severe an enemy of the heart as tea, but its 
action is the reverse. It stimulates and awakens, and is followed 
by depression in which the heart may collapse. It always weakens 
that organ. Coffee also holds back digestion, making that function 
require twice as much time as it otherwise would and leading to 
palpitation and gastric disturbances. 

10. The best stimulant is a natural one and not an artificial 
drink, such as tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages or medicines. The 
natural stimulant is the combination which we will call fresh air, 
constant activity, and special feeding. The last named will be con¬ 
sidered in its place in this treatment. 

11. Why fresh air is a stimulant has already been stated. Why 
constant activity is a stimulant may be stated in the following brief 
proposition: The heart is built by its own blood; this blood carries 
the debris of life in its current, and such debris is full of poisons; 
the heart is hurt by poisons of all kinds, including ferment from 
food and drink and toxins from the unoxidized debris; in order 
to throw off such poisons it is necessary for the circulation to reach 
all the extremes of the body, and all the small vessels in the vascular 
system; but a feeble heart cannot do this, and there is no way left 
to it except by increasing the vigor of its circulation, which means 
to add to the impulse of each beat, and this can only be done by a 
condition of constant activity in the whole body. This is the com¬ 
plete statement of the most important duty of the heart. Constant 
activity must be physical in its nature, as the use of the mind in 
study or even reading is a tax on the heart. Haste not, rest often, 
is the rule. 

12. All reading must cease. The reason for this is that all per- 


WEAK HEART. 


579 


sons who are interested in what they read take very little breath, as 
may be proved by observation. The mind holds the attention, the 
vitality of the heart is drawn into the brain, respiration is nearly 
dead, and the heart is overtaxed at a time when it is denied its sus¬ 
tenance in the form of oxygen and pure air. 

13. All writing must cease for the same reason. But it is also 
true that reading, writing, study, cardplaying, and any occupation 
that holds the attention while the body is inactive, will deprive the 
heart of oxygen, fresh air and vitality. 

14. Cardplaying and all games that require the sitting position 
must be avoided. The habit of playing cards causes the chest to be 
cramped, the heart to be crowded, the mind to take up the vitality, 
the lungs to do almost no work at all, and the circulation to 
weaken. More than this, the interest or feeling, whether of excite¬ 
ment or depression, as the luck goes, will overtax the heart, and 
many a death has followed in the night after a few games. Still 
another reason is this: The air of the room is generally bad, the 
deadness of the atmosphere being a burden on the lungs and heart. 
The same amount of time put into some useful work, or some 
useful play, or some useful association with outdoor life, will bring 
to the heart just that extra impulse which is needed under the 
eleventh paragraph already stated. 

15. All exciting or exceedingly interesting conversation must be 
avoided for the reason that the heart and lungs do very little work 
when the mind is absorbed in any thought or interest. 

16. Theatres, intense recitation, or any form of entertainment 
that excites the mind will overtax the heart. 

17. Long sessions of sitting, no matter where, whether at home, at 
church or in some place of entertainment, must be avoided. 

18. Long rides in the cars are hurtful. Stay at home all you can, 
and make as much of the opportunities for outdoor life there as you 
possibly can. 

19. Do no lifting. Do not help out on some matter when a little 
strength is needed. Many a death has followed the eagerness to 
assist with the hands or to do some other thing that is really a trifle 
in itself. 

20. All your physical faculties should be used at their minimum, 
and yet constantly used. Haste not, rest often. 

21. In case of sudden attack of heart failure, get the shoulders 
open as soon as possible and plenty of fresh air on the face. 


580 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-FOUR. 


22. When a person has an attack of heart disease, the tendency 
is to cramp the shoulders and double up the body. This is one of 
the surest ways of bringing about a fatal result. The first thing, 
therefore, to be done is to lay the patient out in a position where the 
shoulders can be thrown as far apart as possible and the chest made 
free. This simple precaution has saved many a life. A young lady 
playing at the piano was attacked by this disease and doubled up 
with its pain. The doctor arrived after some delay and his first re¬ 
mark was: “ This young lady’s life might easily have been saved 
had some one known enough to throw her shoulders back.” These 
words came from a very eminent physician. The only method of 
natural relief is to form the habit of correct chest carriage; and this 
comes only from the exercise of elevating the vital organs. 

23. The exercise of elevating the vital organs is designed to take 
all pressure from the heart, stomach, and organs below. It is a 
habit more than an exercise, and is acquired by holding the shoul¬ 
ders down, but not forward or back or in a straight line; then, while 
the shoulders are held down, elevate the chest in front, and pull in 
the front wall of the abdomen. This causes the organs within the 
body, each and every one of them, to take their normal position as 
required by nature. Nearly all persons except those who are natural 
athletes allow the vital organs to drop and to fall in a mass in any 
position where gravity will bring them. This of itself has been 
known to cause heart disease as well as falling of the uterus. 

24. Standing with the weight on the heels taxes the spinal 
column and also the heart and lungs, as the strain is backward 
and unnatural. The weight should always be supported on the 
balls of the feet, and this is true of walking as well as of standing. 
It has been proved in army life, and in private life as well, that a 
person can march from five to six times as far if the weight of the 
body is carried on the balls of the feet, as he can if it is carried as 
usual with the blow of each step coming down on the heel. Yet the 
heel should not be kept off the ground; it is an easy matter to 
allow it to strike first and yet take none of the weight or blow of 
the step. 

25. As long as there is any trace of constipation or of insomnia 
our treatments for those conditions should be used until the 
functions of body and mind are normal in these respects. 

“Avoid over-exertion of every kind, whether in mind, muscle or 
emotion,” is an excellent rule. 


WEAK HEART. 


581 


THREE GRADES OF NUTRITION. 

There are three grades of food supply for the heart under any 
and all conditions of weakness and disease, subject to the personal 
advice of your family physician who may fully understand the case 
in all its bearings. 


THE FIRST GRADE. 

DIET. The first grade is what is called diet; that is, a restricted 
line of foods and drinks. In describing them it is not necessary 
for us to repeat the twenty-five suggestions just concluded, for they 
are important in every part of this work. The diet is intended to 
furnish strength in the most nutritive form, for the system needs 
all the food value it can get. During a period of extreme heart 
depression beaten eggs are the most helpful of all foods, for they 
give the body a complete nutrition and do not overburden the cir¬ 
culation. If bulk is allowed, the result will be a greater strain on 
the heart. The eggs should be fresh, and a little care can guarantee 
this. They should be raw and thoroughly whipped in the smallest 
quantity of milk that will contain two of them. These should be 
sipped and not swallowed. Let the glands of the mouth take up all 
they will. As soon as taken, follow with a bowl of marrow broth. 
Let this be sipped likewise. While it is bulk in the sense that it 
contains water, there is none of it that will distend the stomach, and 
the water in the broth will take the place of a supply of drinking 
fluid. It becomes a stimulant that does not have reaction, and 
keeps up the even work of the heart; whereas any other sitmulant, 
such as tea, coffee, liquor, etc., uplifts for the time being and then 
lets the vitality down again lower than before. 

The foregoing is a three days’ diet; and the meals may be two 
hours apart or three, as the appetite may permit. The closer to¬ 
gether they are the better the heart will do its work. 

THE SECOND GRADE OF NUTRITION. 

While the first grade as just given is a strict diet, the next is a 
more liberal form of eating. It makes use of fresh eggs for the 
reason that they best serve the heart. They should be reduced now 
to one whipped egg in a half glass of milk, to be slowly sipped; also 
the marrow broth as before; to which you may add toasted old bread 
made at home after the plan stated in your book of Inside Member- 


582 SPECIAL TREATMENT No. FORTY-FOUR. 

ship. If the bread is not quite old, it may prove injurious, as all 
starchy foods are apt to cause flatulence on the one hand, or to favor 
the formation of uric acid on the other. All new bread and all cake 
and pastry make uric acid; and the weaker the heart is the more of 
such acid is formed in the blood, owing to the fact that the circu¬ 
lation is not strong enough to oxidize the debris that is always break¬ 
ing down in the body. Such foods are, therefore, direct poisons, and 
any physician who allows them to be used under the impression that 
dieting is not needed, is several years behind the times in the treat¬ 
ment of heart trouble. It is not dieting to omit poisons, whether 
in the form of foods or otherwise. 

As the patient seems to progress it is allowable to add rare roast 
beef, but never when re-cooked, and never the outer edge ; also 
broiled steak, scraped beef, broiled chicken, boiled fish; after which 
the food of high regime may be gradually substituted. 

THE THIRD GRADE OF NUTRITION. 

The third step is to employ any and all of the foods of high 
regime, as the taste may prefer, but not to go outside of that list. 
It is not a dieting system, but a food list based on common sense. 
If you were to feed your horses on the best of hay, the best of corn, 
the best of oats, the best of bran, and the best of meal, to which 
pure water is added, would you call that dieting ? Not at all. But 
if you were to feed them on ice cream, pie-crust, new bread, muf¬ 
fins, cake, doughnuts, and similar foods, all of which they will eat 
for a while with impunity; and, when sickness comes, as it surely 
will, would you call it dieting to omit the barbarous foods and go 
hack to the plain and wholesome kinds that made perfect flesh? 
The foods that will poison you will poison the animals. While 
different beings take different articles, it is so ordained by nature 
that the basis of all nutrition is protoplasm, and this is the same in 
the blood of all created beings. All else that is admitted to the 
body is a burden. If the era of perfection is ever reached it will 
be when protoplasm is directly made by the use of such foods as 
compose it. 


WORDS OF ADVICE 



peatrpeat 

Pail. 


Two questions are important in connection with the use of 
the treatments of this hook: 

1. Will they fail in any case? 

2. If so, what is the cause? 

When we declare that those that are known as curative treat¬ 
ments cannot fail, we always refer to cases where the treatments 
have been used as directed. When no attempt has been made to 
carry out all the directions, we do not class the trial as genuine. 

The basis of any true plan of cure is to deal with the chronic 
rather than the acute conditions. The latter are those condi¬ 
tions that are known as climaxes of the accumulated errors of 
the past. We do not deal with acute attacks of any malady. In 
many instances we give valuable advice, but, as the physician says 
to his patient: “When you get out of this, you must be more 
careful in the future/’ so we say: “Be careful to avoid the acute 
forms of any disease.” 

As an illustration, take the case of the failure of the treatment 
for rheumatism. We have watched all cases where it has been sent 
out, and there were twenty-one cures of rheumatism before a 
failure was reached. In the twenty-second case we received word 
as follows: “ The treatment which you sent me has not cured 
me, and I have given it all the attention required.” This report 
called for an investigation on our part; for, while we know that 

(583) 



584 


BOOK OF COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP. 


rheumatism is not easily cured, we felt that the treatment could 
not fail if persisted in. The result of our investigation showed 
the following facts: 

1. The man laid the treatment away for use when an acute 
attack came on. He did not even study or read it until then. 

2. When the acute attack prostrated him, he took the treatment 
and tried to read it. Then he gave several orders to his wife to 
see that the provisions of the treatment were carried out. Receiv¬ 
ing no benefit, he called in his doctor, which he should have done 
at the inception of the acute attack. When he got well he laid 
the treatment aside and did not even read or study it. Another 
attack came on, and he again resorted to the treatment, but with¬ 
out success. 

3. Then he wrote that it had failed with him. 

Under similar conditions it would fail with ten hundred people 
in every thousand. 

This method of dealing with treatments is almost universal with 
those who report failure. It involves two kinds of dishonesty: 

1. Dishonesty in not giving it a trial when pretending to do so. 

2. Dishonesty in reporting a failure when there was no failure \ 
for an untried treatment cannot be charged with failure. 

We had thirty-eight successes in the treatment for faulty stomach 
before a single failure was reached, and we investigated the causes 
of the failure in the thirty-ninth case. The following results were 
established: 

1. The man who tried the treatment well knew that there are 
certain habits that stand in the way of a cure. These habits are 
referred to in the first pages of this book. He said that he had 
followed the treatment for one whole month, and had lived for 
that month in full accord with the plan of Ralstonism to see if it 
really would help him. His language was: «I will give Ralston- 
lsm a full test and see if there is anything in it.” This is what 
he did: 

2. He sat around the house, reading and studying and writing, 
and yet he knew that sedentary habits are the chief cause of 
stomach trouble, for they shut up the intestines and throw the 
poisons back upon the digestive organs. He knew that human 
beings were made for activity on the feet, and not for dead-living 
in sitting postures, but he paid not the slightest attention to this 
first great law. 


WHY TREATMENTS FAIT. 


585 


3. He did not go outdoors except when he felt guilty of staying 
too much in the house; although he well knew that human beings 
were made for outdoor life. By his own confession to his father 
he was out in the open air less than sixty minutes in the day, and 
even when he did go out he rode all he could, either in cars or 
in carriages, and he estimated such periods of riding as outdoor 
living. 

4. He worked evenings and often late into the night, although 
he well knew that the body that has any weak function must be 
given the best hours of the day to rest, and these are in the late 
evening or early night. He slept late in the morning on the 
plea that he could not get sleep at any other time so well; al¬ 
though he knew that an early riser is sure to get natural vi¬ 
tality, and a late riser is sure to become sluggish in any func¬ 
tion that is weak. 

5. He paid no attention to the development of full and deep 
respiration, as he could not see its relation to the stomach; yet 
he had studied that the stomach’s duty is to make blood and send 
it to the lungs, where its purity depended upon the fulness of the 
respirations; which, being deficient, would turn the poisons back 
upon the gastric juices and prevent them from carrying on the 
work of further digestion in a healthful manner. In fact, an ex¬ 
amination of the man showed him to have a flat chest and very 
weak respiration—two conditions that are easily overcome by 
practice such as all human beings need above everything else. 

6. He was a man of unbalanced activities, giving his whole 
attention to literary pursuits. 

7. He made no systematic effort to meet his conditions even in 
the direct use of the treatment, hut read it once or twice and put 
into general practice such of its suggestions as were most con¬ 
venient to him. Other persons, less educated than himself, read 
the treatment fully a dozen times, planned out their course of 
conduct, paid attention to the general laws of nature as applicable 
to the human body, and were able to get well, and they have re¬ 
mained well ever since. It is worth the effort. All told, the 
several requirements are not many, nor are they difficult to one 
who is thoroughly in earnest. They constitute less than one per 
cent, of the trouble of getting cured by drugs and other methods, 
and soon bring all suffering to an end. 


586 


BOOK OF COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP. 


The man in question claimed to have adhered solely to the diet 
and plan of the treatment, and wrote to this effect in the most 
positive terms. We questioned him closely, and he wrote to a 
friend: “ I wonder why they ask me such questions. Do they 
doubt my honesty? I have not varied from their directions in 
the slightest particular. To this I am willing to make oath.” 
Against his most solemn declaration is the following quotation 
from his mother’s letter to us: “ My son has tried for the most 

part to do what the treatment required. But I wish to be fair to 
Ralstonism as well as to him, and will tell you in confidence that 
he has, on an average of once every five days, broken away from 
the directions and indulged in such things as mince pie, pastry in 
various forms, hot rolls and other things. Before he became a 
Balstonite he suffered for days after each indiscretion in eating, 
but has not appeared to suffer since even though he breaks the 
rules you gave him. But when I heard him say that he had 
written you that the treatment had been a failure in his case, I 
felt that he was doing you a wrong unintentionally.” 

All failures have been traced to such misuses of them, and sub¬ 
sequent reports have been untrue. In a later case a lady wrote 
that she had used the treatment for stomach troubles when she 
had an attack of indigestion, but never between the attacks. 

If we have members who are so deficient in intelligence as to 
hold a candid belief that stomach troubles can be treated only at 
the time of the acute attacks, we might as well let it be known 
that there is no remedy for such persons. An acute attack of any 
malady is nothing but the accumulation of abuses; and, if the 
abuses are not to be dealt with, the acute attacks cannot be pre¬ 
vented. How does this look as the calibre of the average mind 
who cannot see why a method of cure should fail? The letter 
above referred to went on to say: “ I was prostrated by severe 
indigestion, and read your treatment as carefully as I could. I 
tried to make use of its suggestions. About ten days later I had 
another attack of the same trouble, and again made a faithful 
study of the treatment. But the attacks kept coming on with 
regularity, and I gave up the treatment and went back to medi¬ 
cines. They have not helped me. Have you anything new to 
offer?” 

She had paid no attention to the directions between the periods 
of attack. The only heed she gave them was when she was in a con- 


WHY TREATMENTS FAIL. 


587 


dition of distress that would not admit a fair trial of any method 
except the blind swallowing of medicines. 

Cures are best effected, not at the time of acute attacks, but in 
the intervals between them. In this same line of peculiar de¬ 
ficiency of intelligence is the letter we once received from a 
woman: “ I read the treatment all through, but it did me no 

good. My husband suggested that I read it all through again, 
and I did, but it did me no good.” 

The reader is disposed to laugh at the simplicity of the woman 
who wrote the latter letter; but her intelligence is no more de¬ 
fective than that of all those men and women who pay no at¬ 
tention to a treatment except when the acute attack is on. 

Better results would be had if each member will keep in mind 
the fact that an acute attack is but the accumulation of abuses; it 
is the collapse founded on what has gone before. It is the falling 
down of the roof of the house, on which rubbish has been piled 
little by little until the burden is too great to be borne. When 
the roof falls in, you remove the rubbish, restore or repair the 
supports, replace the roof, and that attack is over. But at once 
you begin to accumulate more rubbish on the repaired roof, and, 
little by little, it piles up until there is another falling in; a second 
acute attack. What good is any treatment in a case of that kind ? 

Yet this is one reason why failure comes.' 

There is but one sensible course to pursue if you are seeking 
a cure or even the prevention of any malady, and it is this: 

Read the treatment, not once or twice, but many times. Begin 
to put its suggestions into use without delay, whether you are 
suffering or not from the disease. Follow all the directions at all 
times. Do not wait for an acute attack. 

If you will adhere to this simple rule you will find the results 
quite* different from those that follow the careless reference to 
the directions at a time when you are unable to properly compre¬ 
hend them. These treatments are not for the flippant and un¬ 
thinking people; they were horn to take medicines; they expect 
to have the drugs enter the stomach and do their work, no matter 
how much or how little attention is given to the inexorable de¬ 
mands of nature. 

Sensible people, like the greatest physicians of to-day, have as 
little to do with medicines as possible. There is no hope in 
them. Their chief duty is to tide over the acute attack. Be- 


588 


BOOK OF COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP. 


tween such attacks nature is the only agency of cure, and it is 
herein that the great work of Ralstonism is best done. Some 
physicians do not wish to give credit to our methods for fear 
their patients will desert them; but the whole-souled doctors, 
the men of conscience, study our methods and use them; some 
giving us credit and others refusing to do so. 

Knowing that we have an iron-clad rule that prevents us giving 
to the public the names of those who have our books, many doc¬ 
tors deny all knowledge of Ralstonism, yet make use of our prin¬ 
ciples just as though they were their own inventions. We have 
proof of this fact in a large number of cases. The doctor is 
necessarily a medical man; he has studied the use of drugs, and 
he has not considered it of importance to investigate the laws of 
life except as they come under the laws of medicine. For this 
reason the old-fashioned doctor knows but little of diet or regime. 
When he prescribes dieting, he invariably goes back to the one 
rule of omitting the foods that are known the world over to be 
hurtful to well and sick. He knows but little of the principles 
on which a certain article of food or drink may be hurtful in 
one case and not in another. He does not know that specific com¬ 
pounds in the form of common food may be a direct poison in a 
malady of one kind, and helpful in a malady of another kind. 

During the past twenty-five years the work of Ralstonism has 
shown such marked results in effecting cures, that doctors have 
taken up the same lines; dieting is now their chief basis of help 
in connection with the use of medicines; and some of the most 
skilful physicians use dieting and regime in place of medicines 
wherever they can. This shows the trend of sentiment in the 
profession. 

We have seen this change in methods going on for a quarter of a 
century, and we believe that it will not stop until all doctors 
prescribe natural treatments in place of medicines. Look at the 
great change that has been wrought by Ralstonism in the at¬ 
tempts to cure consumption. Twenty-five years ago the whole 
plan was by drugs and medicines, or applications of various kinds; 
never for a moment was a natural treatment thought of. Now. 
the doctor who says medicine in a case of consumption is hooted 
out of his profession. No reputable physician dares to mention 
the use of any internal or external remedy. The time has passed. 
Why? Because medicines all failed. The patients all died. Not 


WHY TREATMENTS FAIT- 


589 


one was saved in that way. On the other hand, the use of 
natural methods has cured countless thousands, and is curing more 
and more every year in proportion to those that are afflicted with 
the disease. In this dread malady the present plan is summed up 
in the following words: Constant sunshine, constant outdoor 
air, eggs, milk, rest, and a few minor matters; but not a drop of 
medicine. Sanatoriums use none; they follow the Ealston plan 
the world over. We cured thousands of men and women of con¬ 
sumption long before our methods were adopted by doctors and 
institutions. 

Having made this great and successful fight in the treatment of 
consumption, our next step was to do the same in the cure of 
rheumatism. No medicines will cure that disease; yet the doc¬ 
tors and sanatoriums have not fully accepted that idea. They 
do not cure, and we do. There is hardly any possibility of failure 
if natural methods are used in exactly the way we have directed. 
Complete and absolute adoption of the suggestions made in our 
treatment will bring the cure. Medicines will not. Watch the 
next few years and note the conversion of the medical profession 
to our plan, just as we converted them to Ealston methods in treat¬ 
ing consumption. So in other maladies, one by one the laws of 
nature will be made use of, and medicines will pass out except in 
extreme cases. 

If the consumptive were to disregard the directions of the 
modern plan of dealing with his disease he would die. If he 
were to make use of the methods only when he had some severe 
attack of the malady he would die. Those in charge of him see 
to it that he uses the treatment at all times, day and night, for its 
good work is going on by night as well as by day, and the fact that 
he feels almost well at times does not give reason for lessening the 
attention to the suggestions. 

What is true of this disease is also true of all others. Many 
a diabetic has gone to his grave because, when he thinks he has 
recovered, he gives up the plan of eating and goes back to the 
old habits that have caused the trouble. A short time ago we 
received word from a recovered diabetic that he had been pro¬ 
nounced perfectly well by his doctor, and was going to eat and 
drink anything he wished. Before we could get word to Europe, 
where he was then living, he had plunged into a mixed diet 
and was dead. 


A BIRD’S EYE VIEW 


OP THE 

@GKa§e§ of ffuman 
Ixaffepipg, 

No fact in the world is more plainly shown than the purpose of 
nature to set up perfect health in the body when not interfered 
with. The causes back of the direct causes of ill health are the 
interferences with this plan of nature; and, so long as these are 
hurled in defiance at her commands, there will be little hope of 
arriving at that condition which is known as perfect health. In 
order that a clear understanding may be had in the outset of 
this work we will allude briefly to the most active of these causes 
of human suffering: 

1. Sedentary Habits.— The construction of the body is such 
as to show conclusively that it is intended for not less than 
eight hours of physical activity in all its parts every twenty-four 
hours, and this activity should occur chiefly in standing and mov¬ 
ing attitudes. The conditions of life are such that these forms of 
activity cannot be secured, and hence suffering is a necessity.^ 
Medicines cannot cure the maladies that arise from locking up the 
poisons in the body that are sure to result from sedentary habits. 

2. Indoor Life. —It is likewise seen that the body is made for 
outdoor life; and its health has the same relation to such life 
that plants and animals hold in their normal existence. Until 
the most recent eras human beings were not sedentary nor were they 

( 590 ) 


BOOK OF COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP. 


591 


shut up for hours a day in h^t and close rooms. In the olden 
times they were bathed in the air and sunshine of outdoor life, 
and were hardy and healthy. But modern conditions are such 
that people must stay indoors in order to attend to their work, 
and hence they must suffer. 

3. Night Life.— The first hours of the night, from about eight 
o’clock to eleven, are the health-giving hours of the whole twenty- 
four; and nature intends them for rest, as may he clearly proved 
by even a glance at her operations. But we cannot ask any person 
to fall in line with the plan of nature, for the answer comes back 
that it will make no difference in the health of such person. We 
do not suggest that nature intends us to go to sleep at eight 
o’clock; but there should he a suspension of the taxing and strain¬ 
ing of the nerves and mind after that hour. It ceases to be the 
time for exhausting thought or labor. Yet the majority of seden¬ 
tary people do their severest tasks in those hours that follow eight 
in the evening. Social activities, banqueting, exciting pleasures, 
study, intense interest in reading and talking; all these reverse 
the plan of nature and humanity suffers. 

4. Weak Respiration.— The lungs do more for the vitality 
and general health than all other influences combined; yet they 
have been so reduced in their work that they are now performing 
about one-tenth of their assigned duty in this age. The lungs are 
leaves on the tree of the human body, and they are made for out¬ 
door breathing. Their habits are the key to vitality, whether of 
the heart, nerves or brain. 

5. Unbalanced Activities. —It is a well established fact that 
the mind as well as the functions of the whole body must have 
a variety of activities demanding attention and work. In former 
times the tendency was toward the all-round man or woman. 
To-day it is toward one-sided life and thought. 

6. Formal Meals.— By this term is meant the custom of in¬ 
dulging in fancy dishes and rich cooking, generally found at for¬ 
mal dinners, etc. Our remarks beginning on page 321 of this 
book should be carefully studied in this connection. 

7. Coagulated Food. —It is not generally known outside of 
the chemist’s laboratory that a temperature above 160 degrees will 
coagulate starchy food as well as albumen; and that the increase 
of the heat up to the boiling or baking point will so set the co¬ 
agulation that the food cannot be digested except under unusual 


592 


CAUSES OF HUMAN SUFFERING. 


conditions. The result is fermentation, and this works in various 
ways throughout the system until some organ fails to do its 
work. The vast majority of necessary food is of the starchy 
class. Humanity cannot easily get along without it, for it in¬ 
cludes bread, the staff of life, as well as all grains, potatoes, and 
other things in common use. As these foods cannot be eaten in 
a raw state except in a very limited way, it is necessary to cook 
them; and they must be cooked until they are past their state of 
coagulation. This requires long cooking in almost all cases. As 
most bread, and all rolls, muffins, pancakes, doughnuts, sweet cakes, 
pastry, crackers, biscuit, snaps and hundreds of other things are 
cooked enough to produce starchy coagulation, and not enough 
to pass that state, it follows that they are injurious to the system; 
and this fact is proved by the ferment, poisons, toxins and disease 
which they set up in the body. When cooked for a sufficient 
length of time, starchy foods are the basis of the best health as 
far as the use of food is concerned. But the art of cooking to-day 
is directed to pleasing the palate; just as the decayed meat is 
covered with gravy and condiments in order to conceal its taint, 
and is then made most delicious to the taste; the sickness that 
follows it being ascribed to the thing that the individual most 
dislikes to eat or do. 

8. Capillary Weakness. —The duty of daily building up the 
waste parts of the body, on which life itself depends, is charged to 
the capillaries more than to any other function. These little 
activities are engines that throb and heat, as they act upon the 
blood which passes from veins and arteries. Under the condi¬ 
tions of modem living, they are kept clogged and choked, so that 
they are unable to throw off the waste material; and this is 
hurled back upon the heart, the lungs, the gastric juices, the 
liver and the kidneys. Hot until such weakness of the capiB 
laries is overcome can the physician hope to make a favorable 
prognosis. But why not seek to prevent the error by daily at¬ 
tention to the body? Very little time is needed, and it will ac¬ 
complish what medicines cannot attain under the most favorable 
circumstances. 

9. Apothecary Grocers.— The store of the grocer to-day is 
in reality an apothecary shop. It contains prepared goods in cans, 
jars, glasses, pasteboard, paper and what else; practically all of 
which may be regarded as chemically treated, or else directly 


BOOK OF COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP. 593 

adulterated; for, under cover of such outsides, it is an easy matter 
to doctor the contents. The staple foods of life are preserved 
against decay and worms by being lightly covered with the vapor of 
poisons that not only keep off such invasion, but also prevent the 
bacteria of digestion from acting on the nutritive parts of them. 
The plain foods of a generation ago are rarely for sale now. The 
bottled goods, the contents of jars, tubs, firkins, pails, glasses, jugs, 
cans and other packages that contain things intended for the 
human stomach, are absolutely unfit for such use in fully ninety- 
nine instances out of every hundred. The true type of grocer is 
one who sells the plain, simple products of the land and of the 
mills, in open bulk, where adulteration is least likely to occur; 
for these were the conditions in the era when health and vitality 
were at their best. Avoid package goods. Avoid cooked goods. 
Put your honest legislators to the task of watching the flouring 
mills of the land, to keep alum and other poisons out of the staple 
food of humanity. These three precautions will do more to 
build up a healthy people than any other three we can name. 

10. Adultekations.— These exist in everything that can be 
put in bottles, glasses, cans, jars, jugs or other packages. The 
wretched man or woman who seeks food and gets poisons is soon 
driven to stimulants; then come the myriad forms of adultera¬ 
tion in beers, wines and liquors, despite which fact the torn system 
must have them; and now comes the breakdown of the mind and 
nerves, for which deadly drugs are taken until the will power is 
enslaved, and, finally, comes the desperate dependence on medi¬ 
cines, only to get further adulterations, for there are very few 
drugs that are not saturated with the demon greed, that universal 
devil that stalks everywhere. If you could collect together in this 
country all the goods of all kinds that are on sale to-day containing 
adulterations, and make one heap of them, you would have a 
mountain besides which the loftiest peak of earth would stand 
abashed by its insignificance; and against this enormous mass you 
might place the purely made foods, drinks, medicines, etc., and 
you would hardly make the ground bulge into a foot hill. 

When foods cannot be obtained in a condition fit for eat¬ 
ing, when the packages that contain them are embellished with 
ornamental print that describes lies, when the hungry system 
must build its weak support on tinsel boasts, when in despair the 
wretch seeks stimulants only to find those that are most loudly 
33 


594 


CAUSES OF HUMAN SUFFERING 


advertised to be the most villainous, when the final source of hope, 
medicines, must be classed in the same category, then there is but 
one more refuge, and that is suicide. 

Suicide consists in taking one’s own life by violent means, as 
by poisons, drugs, pistol, gas or other method. It also may be 
done by a wanton giving up of the battle of life, by despondency 
which stops the work of the brain and heart, or by refusing to 
stand heroically in the breach and make use of the other means 
that are at hand whereby existence may be prolonged, and the 
conditions of living made more attractive. 

This is an age of suicides. They are everywhere on the in¬ 
crease. In a recent conversation with a coroner we were told that 
suicides were so numerous that certificates of death were given as 
for accidents in every case where it was possible to do so rather 
than have such an increase of self-destruction go on record in the 
United States. 

It is to offer to all who are willing to make the fight for 
health the means of securing that great boon that we have pre¬ 
pared and published this volume. It will not fail in any case 
except where there is a neglect of some of the requirements. The 
human will is so weak, especially among the sickly, that friends 
should see to it that the treatments are faithfully adopted even in 
the smallest details. When failure occurs we know as an abso¬ 
lute fact that some of nature’s laws have been violated, and the 
most solemn declarations to the contrary cannot shake the truth 
from its pedestal. 


©losing ffemarki 

The forty-four treatments in this book represent the best and 
latest science of to-day along the lines of natural treatment. 

We ask you to read carefully the remarks made in the final 
pages of this volume, also those that are found in the few pages 
beginning at end of the eleventh treatment, and those that follow 
the last or forty-fourth treatment. You will be convinced, not 
only from these remarks, but also from an observation of the 
drift of methods among the best physicians, that it is only a 
question of a few years when all forms of treatment will depend 
wholly on nature except in the most critical acute attacks, and 
these are likely to be averted by proper use of nature in advance. 

Ralstonism, therefore, is not a fad or something new for the 
chosen few, but is the forward march of all humanity. 


YEW DISCOVERIES AHEAD. 

At the present time all that is known to us is put in this book. 

But we are at work on other matters, and science is delving into 
the unknown, with a certainty of bringing new truths to light. 
It is more than probable that we shall have much that is new 
to offer to our members, and that within the next few years. 

While no change will be made in the forty-four treatments of 
the present volume, it is likely that additional matter may be 
acquired. It is also quite true that many diseases and disorders 
that we have not dealt with will be mastered and suitable treat¬ 
ments published. We believe this to be a fact because Ralstonism 
has never flagged in its progress. It has changed its printed 
matter quite frequently, but never has failed to build upon the 
old and added much that is new. For these reasons all loyal mem¬ 
bers have gladly welcomed our works as they have appeared from 
year to year. 


( 595 ) 


596 BOOK OF COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP. 

The cost of these books is not in the paper and printing; it is 
chiefly in the preparation of them and the accumulation of the 
facts on which they are based. Thus one treatment may involve 
the expenditure of a fortune, and the presswork and paper may 
cost comparatively little. 

The present book is brought within the reach of members at 
a price that is ridiculously small, even disregarding the expense to 
which we have been put in securing the knowledge contained 
in it. 

It would, therefore, be fair to charge a similar price for subse¬ 
quent discoveries and treatments, but we wish to make the fol¬ 
lowing 

GENEROUS OFFER TO OWNERS OF THIS BOOK, 

who adhere faithfully to the conditions under which it is rented; 
and we submit the provisions that seem to be most fair to all. 

We will present free of cost all new editions, all new dis¬ 
coveries, all new science, all new treatments, all additions to for¬ 
mer treatments and all other literature that shall ever he pub¬ 
lished as part of the work of Complete Membership, or in con¬ 
nection therewith (one copy each), to every owner of this booh 
who will honorably abide by the conditions, which are as follows: 

1. This book of Complete Membership is the property of the 
Ralston Company, but may be retained and used by the member 
to whom it is rented as long as such member mav live, or may de¬ 
sire to use it; after which it shall revert to the Ralston Company, 
and any attempt to loan, sell, give or in any way to part with it 
by such member shall at once cause the title and right of pos¬ 
session to vest in Ralston Company. Every member who is 
acting in good faith will see that this provision is complied with, 
whether rewarded or not for so doing. 

2. The member must also enter Ralston Clan as per the pro¬ 
visions of Clan Guide for 1905. 

3. Notice must be sent to us as soon as this offer is read, and 
it should be a copy of the following: 

“To Ralston Company, Washington, I). C.—This is to give 
notice that I wish to receive free of charge a copy of any and 




CLOSING REMARKS. 


597 


every future edition of the book of Complete Membership, and 
any new treatments that may be issued, or any additions to the 
treatments already published, or new discoveries that may he 
made in reference to the same. I have joined Ralston Clan 
under the plan of the 1905 Guide, and will abide by all its pro¬ 
visions; and will use the book of Complete Membership and all 
other emoluments in the manner required.” 

Always state club number when writing. 

What this offer means may be seen from the fact that Ralston 
Gardens of Life passed through nine editions in a few years, and 
each edition was a distinct improvement on those that preceded. 

Progress and advancement are the leading principles of Ral- 
stonism. 


















•< ^ ^ © ;*i 

^ ^< * ..v*P* v't^> • > 

<> v « ' , , v^///i ., </* ’\ v 



- A % 

V i ^ •> ' i 

oV ' *<$:£>* 

. s s \6 <* y o * y * ,<\ 

rP ' yn. i 

^ f - A ^ .' 

i x° °* * ^ 

<* 


A *• 

4^ r •• 


** V % . 




V * 0 



r o 

,%* ,T *' / '!•A*./%' 0 ’ 1 / V .cA*«%?*' « 

^ $ [■ Ay -f rff T.\ ^ -SVAuS* ✓ 

"oo 1 ' v ° 

4 y, * o A o. >. 

.„ - ,* A A '^'.' o ' " c A 
%*'"' v> x " *'•//♦'"> * ,N °A *’••/% *"’* A *'••'♦ -> ,;r v ’' 9 

° * <A A *' (AA A r <A \V * * 'A A *• 

" •%►«> . Avi ; -a%,» - <SrHI ' t<v - 

7- 




NT V. 

; ** A : 

° dv> <$> o 

■*> ,Y’ A J « (S'Vs V 

N -A * 6> 2> . A 

, .S ,4 <* ✓ n - . * .'A 

* * 0 ^ .'•'*« ~U 

0° *' **■- 1 * 




A ‘ c » l * c , \''**’' A «' 1 * * ’■# 

# ° . 0 * * 0 &* A 4 

c Ami - •* A- v 



v / ^ »* 

'***' j- 


0 


aV j> 

4 y * 




A 


4 0 « 1 ~ y» / ^ 

^ 


•/ A 


<P-^ 

ci>. ^ , JLw ^ 

4 ^/ a <G 

• 4 .‘1'- ®o cp\4* 


-< 

' : = 4° ^ 

_ ^ ^^/Zf/af? s> 

r> y > , ' ) O 4- v O 

., »»»•’/ , .„ ^ »»><* 

A . '? > V , 

■k/ *^jfk\ ; 

- *si e A <<, o 

* .y ■•< v ,* y '■>, • * ,.\/ <i- 

'■ 


O 


x 


<% ^ “ 

-o, ^ *•• v 

'-"' /L f 

/>- ® ^ ,A X © 


^ A. A" 



vA c“' ‘ .;'b A y""*/^ 

< T* ^ ^stSrw ^ ,Jy ( ^ . X ^ + 

■s' '~ ‘ V’ jj&'- ‘ //^2~ 'P 

A ^ \ ^ /^l n\ -/ 

^ o 0 X *> 

<r » 

•» Q> ^ 

,.,... \ v ^ 

' ' \ /.’ , . • , %' * GTo ’ * f 0- ’ % , . „ V '/.;‘ * « • ' *' A s s . . r **>*•. Ao ’'’ o * 

\ :0M'r a ^ 

A^ Afi r* « Cy> **k, o k//, 

*= V A?» w V^^v 1 ♦ 'A <i> »• * A? <4> o 

> -^ v • * e A5, ^ ^ s^m$W * ,^ V ^ ^ ' -VJ 

<r ^ y o, k ^ A <a ** i . . s ■ y y o * v ^ A o 

'<* *• 0 N c *, r b, C V x A 1 ^ % A c 0 N G ♦ '' 

^ 0 s ./Y7^-> 1 JT> 9 rsfv 


A 


4 jS^< 


- - ^ V" o „ 


<■ # , 


NP c \G O 

W.' 4 

? y0 J 


A. ^ 0 N 0 5 A 



0 X ' ' * 0 ^ *b> 


V 


A A 

v V </>. 


A " 


A 




-a. A 

V V i. •?:' ; ' v - \ v ; ; 1 ! , J;/y : c,' 

^ V> s «v - a ^ %r!w ^v, w tf> 

> 4 Jt ^ A s , ^ *-»G <G <* y 0 « 4 * <\ A ^ , ' K V. N . o v /!< 





1 » 

* a \ v ^ ^ 

c > x a" ^ v 

' »-.%. * * 1 ’'* v'V' •: -, 3 R 0 















































. fc N <; 

1 lO * X 

'P *?r\ AN c y 

*<t- V s 

^ ® po* * ^ 

d' 

c\ l 

■> ^ ° 


V VC 



*A \ ' B A, 

rO* s* * 

y 0 * ■*** 

r <y C 

* OCT 

»* ^ \ .' n0 

v'V^' #, '/‘->c. A 

v. * * 'A ^ « <A />) <?' AV 

u ^ b * A. ,y>/- )) z </> <\> 

■jiW* </ ^ VAA* /A - 

V, ;;/a ^ v :J v' 6 * <. A 

^ .*P ..' ■ ■ 

.U ' V>>/ : 


,V c oW - 


M v \ 0 /> 

IP’A '% ^ ^ 

*• * 

o x 0 C> 

\ r<> 

> - £ 

.<#■' ,, v ■ * o; o ’* Uo° 

> s'” f „ A * 0 A 

:• *. a* ” 




A' ’S* 


< A. * ff 1 V 

****■/• %> 

5> * ^ 

^ A» r V - ' -i 

« w/M c/> V 


< 






v i fl 



'r CJ 

* -D 0 > 

<*- N o" - *- • X 

^ V . • «,M « °o i api wagr » r ; ^ ^ 

/ ^ ^ ^ ^ it, % 

•' t ... f % *■ %‘-^,, 1 »'\# s „ %•**!>«' 

* 7)1 - ^ ^ ° 1 ; '^> ^ 

^ % 1 ° Wf r A ^’ - 

<A •< 





‘^o 0 X 

^ sFII/a 

* 

//yA T 

•< 

^ o t7 ^ 

AM v' 

;^ClA <* 


# ^ g , 

A O 
VsV > 

^ >■ ^:| 

YiliSW ^ 



^: 

'^A 


X° °z. 

_ 

.0 


^ U * 

\Sy ^4* * 

<3rr V J* 

* aV ^ z <4A r ~ n ' o- v . 

V*'**'\ .v'A‘”^ "> 

<1 - ^ pfC\%s y^h\\* 

v \^*r«&ry A 

\\ ' o N c A- /y » * S A° * 

** *'°o c. 

<*. c-v awv y 


o 
CL 

■' -V ^ ° 

•% ^X; ■<?' ^ 

* 0 s S A V I » V* y ° * ^ c \\ X o N c 

C,0- v" *4 .A 5, 

/■A -< f ^ ^ 



v- V 




V> % 
-%> A? 



* ' J> 

- . o ■ 4 ° ° t> * ? 1 

,0‘ C‘ 

- A, r fj ^ *f>. 

^ V' vV^ 'v' 4 ° ^ 

V: v> «j A\\i«c¥/ ->v z 


lV tP. 



o 0 


^ -^. l 



- 4> w *' 

A . ' 

^ - A 

* ~r+, $ - 

^ rv ^ 

A * ^ ^ 

^ -7 , . • .0 r b. ^ S. \S <$- 



V x 


3 








o A °^. - 

A ^ o 0 A 

Xf % x * . 

'V' & r 0 y A ° ^ >Vy ^ 

; : -'mlm* u 

» A 


- . ’ rP V * ‘J C' t- v 

s- ”■-^% 4 »• K0 > »:*•V* 11 * 


...* d?% -. 

* j -k \ <Sj ** t ^ s / 

y o * X \ V ( y. * tr <T ^ ts V 1 B >, “/ 

v V C ° ^ . 0„ ,.0 r N ^ 

v\ 



/ 

V ’ 



C^A ✓ VK > 3 '“' « r\ 

^ v ^ 7 8 1 

/y > ^ ' ° ' 

' -v .V s ^ R g. JS V 

* <iS' * : ^ : .A, o '>, 

" S « #s.™; ij~ / cP ,< 

si- * A' 'Al m * ^<y>' 

i, ■- A' -i s> 

/ c®' / ^ >,S 

•t %P /(O » ^<v. C' o 0 A 

y. A/ <s 

T ^ . « 01 v ’ 

A n /r ' <■ X, * 



J "e. / 

* * *- ,J %-. c% N . 


\° °X. - vy 



'Ap 0^ 


-> k sA - 

\' > 




C‘ I - '^' N ' A-’ ^r * h 

n *V ^ 8 t ' A s *'♦ , ' J K 

X ■ * 0 f *C> V * > > .J ^ ^ 

* Sp K .y -s *$9*. * 

<S‘ & * -^WfrL^. ^ *>A 

z ^ ^ ; 

° ,v> % = 

r ,* * ‘ 

' J - * ft S S 
7 > *f w ^N 

,-s 

'<-s A <- 

A- ^ 

* 

o x 0 O. 

A v<> 



, “V A , 

m, V ,, "\' A •'‘tV , "''/'‘'''' ^ ""''A'' 

4 a> <t v Ar <p • Ai> c ^ . C> r 0 v ^ ^ aX> > .- 

>0 \ 1 sfJ J XV « r^Wv, . C> V.' ^ 

^ d&ril;/?^ 4> r^. AN ^ 
















































